National Library and Archives of IRAN in Thesis

Over the six decades since LIS education began in Iran, considerable number of theses have been defended with the National Library and Archives of Iran (NLAI) being the subject of them entirely or partly. This paper aims to inform the authorities of the NLAI as well as the LIS academics and students of this record.

Relevant titles were identified by examining numerous bibliographic databases. Titles, abstracts, and sometimes the content of the theses were closely studied to determine their subjects, then checked with subject authority lists to put them in subject groups.

409 theses were identified in four main areas, i.e. organizational management, organization of information, services and information dissemination, and collection management. More than half of the theses belonged to state public universities. NLAI academic staff supervised or co-supervised 28٪ of the theses. Around 52% titles were surveys, and around 32% used questionnaires for gathering data. The Department of Processing Department and the Research and Education more than other parts of the NLAI were the subjects of the theses.

Topics related to organizational management have attracted the interests of students the most. Few theses have addressed the chronic problems of the national collection and archives. Use and user studies are almost absent. A comparison between the works done by the NLAI staff and universities, as well as a study that examines the extent to which NLAI departments have employed the findings of the theses is suggested.