Determining the information needs of post-graduate students at Bu-Ali Sina University with emphasis on available electronic databases

The present research aimed to determine the information needs of post-graduate students at Bu-Ali Sina University located in Hamedan, with emphasis on available electronic databases (including Rose net and Daneshyar). The methodology was descriptive survey using a questionnaire, reliability of which was measured 0.85 based on Cronbach's alpha. The results revealed that the most important goal of students when searching for data is to find background information for their research tasks and projects. The Science direct/Elsevier database ranks first (89.2%) as the most used electronic database by the students, while Springer, ISI, Scoups, Proquest, ACS, Oxford Journals, Emerald, ASME, Ebsco, ASCE, IOP, and AMS rank 2nd to 13th respectively. The main obstacles of easy access to information are mentioned as: not enough knowledge of English language and the interruption of universities subscription in the case of some electronic databases.