The Access to Namaye»Database of Persian language articles«in public libraries in Mashhad; The evaluation of quantity, quality and users satisfaction

Perpose: The aim of this research is to study The Namaye “Database of Persian language articles” effect on the enhancement of the informational services of the public libraries and evaluation of user's satisfaction of it and its functionality for them. The first population was all the librarians of the public libraries of Mashhad. The second population was the first 10 users of 21 public libraries of Mashhad who were familiar with Namaye. The third population was all the searches done during 2 months at these databases in 9 most used libraries of 3 different regions of Mashhad. The method which was used can be divided in two parts: 1) the use of non interventional observation with the help of Snagit software which recorded and analyzed the searches. 2) The second part was a descriptive survey which included two librarian's and user's questionnaires for collecting information. The results of the research show that: 1) on the average, the opinions of the users and the librarians on "the method of reference to Namaye via librarians" are 3.88 and 4.61, respectively, which is "more than the medium limit". The librarians, in comparison with the users, much more supported this theory. 2) On the average, the opinions of the users and the librarians on "the purpose of reference to Namaye database" are 3.88 and 4.38, respectively, which is more than the medium limit. Moreover, the users mostly refer to Namaye for research. The librarians, in comparison with the users, more supported this theory. 3) On the average, the opinions of the users and the librarians on "the method of searching in database" is 3.94, most of the searches were topical. The results of the analysis done by Snagit software reveal that more than 82% of the searches were topical. 4) More than 64% of the users prefer scientific journals and 52% prefer popular journals, total average of the opinions is 3.11 which is more than the medium limit. The librarians and the users agree on the fact that popular articles are more selected. The results of the analysis done by Snagit software reveal that more than 62% of the users choose articles from popular magazines. 5) Results of the user's and librarian's opinions on "the user's satisfaction of the ease of access to Namaye" are 2.73 and 3.63, respectively. From librarian's point of view, the users are relatively satisfied with the ease of access to Namaye. 6) On the average, the opinions of the users and librarians on "the advantages and disadvantages of Namaye" are 3,54 and 3.70, respectively, which is more than the medium limit. Overall, the advantages of the database are more than its disadvantages; total average of 3.62, in comparison with the opinions of the two groups, shows that the opinions of the users are because of the less of their knowledge about how to use the database. 7) The average opinions of the users on "the ratio of the used papers to the retrieved papers in the database" with the value of 3.40, show that there is a big difference between what is retrieved and what is used. The results of the analysis done by Snagit software also reveal that only 1% of the retrieved papers are used, therefore. The research show that the librarians are less familiar with the Namaye than the internet and the computers. 70% of the librarians, for resolving user's and their own informational needs, prefer internet to the database. The librarians feel that they have to use the database more.The librarians need to be trained for using the database. 71% of the librarians declare that the use of the database will increase in future. All the librarians think that there must be some changes made to the database and it cant be a complete substitute for the printed magazines yet. The most important disadvantages of the database, from librarian's point of view, are in aspects of 1) facility of display 2) capacity and 3) the facilities of the searching; and they mentioned 1) the ease of access and 2) the topical coverage as its advantages.