Cost-Benefit Survey of Conservation and Preservation Methods of Resources in Libraries of Tehran Governmental Universities

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the cost-benefit of resources’ conservation and preservation methods in libraries of Tehran governmental universities. The method of the present research is descriptive. The stratified sampling technique is used to indicate a total sample of 83 managers/ supervisors of central and academic libraries (contain 13 central and 70 academic libraries) who 42 of them (51 percent) answer the questionnaires. To gather at the research data a questionnaire with 9 tables is designed. Validity of the questionnaire was determined with some of library professors and its reliability was measured with Cornbrash’s alpha about 0.88 that is good. The data analysis of the present research was performed by Excel. Findings: Findings showed that in this population, cleaning (62.20 percent) is the most activity of conservation, and binding and replacement (83.34 percent) is the most activity of preservation. Also in the libraries with the higher resources, cost-benefit attribute (desirability of economic profitability) is relatively good. The situation is more or less similar to the average resource libraries, but in the libraries with lower sources which the major part of the research (about 64/29 percent) there is not any desirability of economic profitability in the conservation and preservation selected methods. The results of the libraries’ cost-benefit evalution showed that small libraries are in the unsuitable situation. Protection against atmospheric pollution, security, and protection against fire methods are the main shortcomings in these groups of libraries.