Information Literacy Skills and Related Factors among Librarians of Mashhad ‎University ‎of Medical Sciences and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran‎

Librarians in academic libraries should have suitable information literacy skills in order to ýaccess the information they need and meet the needs of their clients. Hence, the present study ýaimed to evaluate and determine the status of the three levels of information literacy skills ýand their related factors among librarians of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences and ýFerdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran.
This applied research was conducted through survey method. The study population consisted ýof all librarians with a bachelor’s degree or master's degree in librarianship or non-librarianship ýfields working in the abovementioned university libraries (n = 120). Through non-proportional ýstratified random sampling method, 80 individuals were selected as the final sample. The ýassessment tool was a researcher-made questionnaire the validity and reliability (Cronbach's ýalpha = 0.86) of which were confirmed. Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics ýý(frequency distribution, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (one-sample t-ýtest, independent t-test, ANOVA, and Duncan's post hoc test) in SPSS software.
The librarians’ information literacy status was less than desirable; neither of the elementary, ýbasic, and advanced levels of information literacy had desirable scores among the librarians. ýThe mean scores of information literacy of librarians with degrees in librarianship and medical ýlibrarianship were significantly higher than that of librarians with other degrees. Moreover, the ýmean information literacy score of librarians with a master’s degree was higher than that of ýlibrarians with a bachelor’s degree. There was no significant difference between the mean ýinformation literacy scores of librarians based on their work experience.
The results of this study showed the undesirable status of information literacy and its three ýlevels among librarians. Moreover, it indicated the effective factors for improving information ýliteracy among librarians for the planners and administrators of the libraries of these two ýuniversities.