A comparative study of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences Libraries

Planning and strategic management are important parts of management systems. SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Treat) model evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities in an organization. The purpose of this study was to assess the comparative analysis of internal and external status of Isfahan Medical University libraries by using this model. Present study was conducted in September 2014. The method of this research is Descriptive-survey. The validity of Made questionnaire tool was verified by experts, and reliability using Cronbach's alpha was calculated in the rate of 94/0. 38 managers and librarians of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences libraries are study population. Due to availability of all community members, sampling was dropped, and the census method was conducted. Descriptive statistics and Microsoft excel 2013 software were used for data analyzing. In libraries of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences 50 elements of 8 internal dimension was studied, 9 strength points and 10 weakness points was recognized and 31 remaining factors were in the middle. In the study of 4 external dimension 25 factors examined, these libraries having no opportunities while 16 factors threaten them, and 9 other factors were in the middle. The results showed that the status of internal and external factors in Isfahan University Libraries is average. Due to superiority of the weaknesses and threats on the strengths and opportunities, in the case of Inattention and inaction of administrators, these libraries may be adversely affected. Managers and librarians’ awareness of the identified problems, and their efforts to promote the strengths, overcome the weaknesses, win of the opportunities and dominate the threats, could be an important step in the promotion of library services for faculty members, physicians, researchers and students.