مهرداد نیکنام

This research studied the information seeking behavior of faculty members of Yazd University of Medical sciences and measured their skills in retrieving information, with the aim of improving information seeking among them. Methodology/Approach: 243 questionnaires were distributed among the faculty members of Yazd University of Medical Sciences, 200 were completed and collected. This questionnaire, with 24 closed questions, was a researcher-made questionnaire inspired by similar questionnaires. Before distribution, the advice of a number of professors and experts in the field of library and information science and also some professors in the field of medical sciences working in the region were applied to the questionnaire. The collected data were imported to SPSS and analyzed based on descriptive statistics. 72 faculty members stated that libraries have an average effect on searching for information. The most important medium for accessing information were databases and digital libraries. Index Medicus and PubMed were respectively the most popular databases for printed and digital resources in the field of medical sciences. Furthermore, the most important motivation and aim in searching for information was improving teaching quality. Among the electronic resources used, eBooks were the most popular and among printed resources, specialized books had priority. The most important difficulties in accessing electronic and printed information were respectively, low network speed for sending and receiving information and lack of time. The information seeking behavior of faculty members of Yazd in terms of their access to needed information is not at an optimum level.

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the staff working in the National Library of Iran. The paper also studies the possible impact that the education and field of study of the staff may have on their performance. Methodology/Approach: Library research methodology was used in this research. The population of this study includes all the staff employed in the National Library of Iran. The required data was mainly collected through a questionnaire. Results show that, 78.61% of the staff are women and 18.5% are men. The field of education of 60.69% of the staff is completely related to their jobs, 5.2% is somewhat related and 33.52% consider that these two factors have no relationship. 75.72% of the survey population have passed general and professional courses during their career. A total of 52.06% of the staff are satisfied with their employment situation and 24.85% are dissatisfied. The average duration of working in the National Library is about 11 years. The research findings show that the staff of the National Library are generally in a good position in terms of education. According to existing standards, the average of specialist staff (having graduate degrees) in comparison to other staff must be 33 percent, but this ratio is 25.43 percent in the studied Library. On the other hand, the average percentage of staff with undergraduate education who have relevant education must be 60 percent, and the National Library meets the requirements in this regard (60.69 percent).