User's assessment of Ghadir Project (Tehran 2004)

Officially launched in 1999 by the Ministry of Sciences, Research and Technology, Ghadir Project provides direct access to academic libraries’ holdings. Patrons of member libraries could use the resources regardless of point of access. The present paper attempts to evaluate the project from the view point of its most important beneficiary, i.e. users located in Metro Tehran.On the average, 60 percent of the users based in Tehran, have assessed the impact of Ghadir Project as high. 71.2 percent were highly satisfied with the project. Users’s perception of the most outstanding limitations and possible issues with Ghadir Project were: Lack of either hardcopy or online union lists, lack of cooperation by some libraries, technological issues, discrimination between libraries’ in-house patrons and those referred by other libraries, low number of member libraries, big Libraries dissatisfaction with the additional workload, and bureaucratic red-tape. In several cases there had been significant differences in perception among three user groups (Graduate Students, PhD Candidates and Faculty Members).