Procedures of Attracting People to Public Libraries Based on the Content Analysis of Thesis Founded by Iran Public Libraries Foundation

This research aims to analyze all dissertations founded by the Iran Public Libraries Foundation during years between 2000 -2014 to extract solutions offered by researchers about attracting people to the public libraries.
I used qualitative content analysis with inductive approach. Thematic analysis is the main way in this method. The research population was included 53 dissertations founded by the Iran Public Libraries Foundation. Main categories of user attraction procedures extracted classified and described.
Findings: Solutions proposed to attract people to public libraries classified in two main categories: 1) soft aspects (Librarians) with five categories and 34 sub-categories and 2) hard aspects (organizational structure) with eight categories and 40 sub-categories. In the soft section, the main categories were services, availability, personal skills, marketing and promotion of services and need assessment. In the hard side, the main categories were education, entrepreneurship, organizational rules and regulations, collection development, interior design of libraries, equipment, location, and technology infrastructure.
Originality/Value: This thematic analysis can be regarded as an effort to show the core concepts of founded dissertations and an emphasis on hard aspects of the problem because of its frequency, detail and richness.