The aim of the research was investigating and visualizing the intellectual structure of thermodynamics subject area based on outputs of Iranian scholars of the field indexed in Thomson Reuters Web of Science during time span of 1990-2009. The population of the research was all references of the mentioned publications. The sample was the top 1 percent cited scholars of the field. This scientometric research is based on citation analysis and the author-co-citation analysis and social network analysis have been utilized for evaluating the base authors in citation network of the field. The result of the research is presenting a macro image of the intellectual foundations of the field and its analysis. Also, we analyzed and ranked the subject area based on its specialties, and new social network, temporal and citation indicators such as novelty, centrality, modularity, silhouette, density.

The aim of this study was to exploring the problems and challenges of dissertation writing process of library and information sciencein regard to students’ perspective. The survey population was consisted of all library and information sciences’ students who graduated from one of the universities in Tehran in recent years. The sample of research was consisted of 20 students who were selected through snowball sampling and purposed sampling. This study is a qualitative research and researcher used Collective Case Study method. Also, the study was done through interview and the data were analyzed by Grounded Theory and qualitative content analysis. The results showed that there were many weakness points and problems in different part of writing a dissertation including: topic selection, proposal, writing all chapters, principles of writing, research ethics, and satisfaction from supervisors.Originality: Dissertations are an important part of research and university productivity. Therefore, students’ point of view toward writing a dissertation is a necessity for a qualified work. This study tried to show the situation of writing dissertations of library and information science by using qualitative approach and it helped us to solve problems.

Object: This research aimed to survey the aspects of information technology (IT) and its effects on organizational structure and management in the libraries of Shiraz University using qualitative and relationship method. To gather data، a questionnaire was prepared on based on 7 points Likert scale and distributed among 64 staff and experts of the Shiraz University Libraries. Then، data was analyzed in method of qualitative and inference by SPSS software. The results show that IT development has effect on organizational structure and specially decreases centralization. But the relationship between IT development and management practices improvement was not confirmed. IT development has the most effect on centralization’s decrease، training and personnel empowering and communications improvement. Although there is not any relationship between IT، evaluation performance and human resource selection. Originality: In a practical way، the present research studied the impact of pre-assumptions of IT development and it’s relation to organizational structure and management functions in the libraries. Thus، the results of this study can be used in libraries and other similar organizations and can remove possible weaknesses and strong existing strengthens.

The present study aims to verify web preservation projects and programs in order to explore their preferred solutions in tackling the technical challenges. A documentary method was used to identify and analyze web-preservation-related literature, including papers, handbooks, web sites and documents. The programs’ persons in charge were also questioned. Besides, top web preservation programs and projects were identified and studied using Google search, as well as the program's interfaces and documents, related directories and literature. After verifying and filtering the programs, 61 top ones were remained to be studied. The web preservation technical challenges can be categorized into several categories including the components to be preserved, the preservation strategy; the versions & editions to be preserved; metadata; metadata types; metadata production methods; searching & browsing services and modes; indexing services; classification & cataloging; harvesting, access & indexing software; and preservation model. The operational programs were found to choose various solutions to overcome the technical challenges. However, there still remains a wide range of problems hindering an ideal implementation.

Object: Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology has a significant impact on industrial and service organizations. This technology supplies an innovative automated system for library intelligent management. Success in organizational use of RFID in libraries requires its acceptance and accurate usage by users. Current study aims to investigate the most effective factors on RFID acceptance by library staff and indentify the existing relations between them applying an interpretative structural modeling to propose a suitable model. By studying previous RFID theoretical studies, effective factors have been identified on RFID acceptance by users and it has been modeled by applying an interpretative structural modeling technique. As a data collecting instrument, researcher-made questionnaire was used and distributed among responders. The population of the study included all the staff members working in central and faculty libraries of Bushehr University of Medical Sciences who were familiar with RFID technology. The results indicate that “attitude towards technology” is an essential factor in accepting RFID by library staff members. Positive attitude towards technology can result in a situation that RFID accepted as a valuable technology in accessing information. On the other hand, this has a great effect on reduction of staff resistance towards RFID acceptance.

Object: The aim of the study is to identify the prevalence of social media in academic libraries in order to understand the reasons for creating social media pages and obstacles for not participating in social media among librarians. Data were gathered via three focus study groups with 22 librarians from three research-intensive universities in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The results indicated that at least four types of social media are deployed in libraries to reach out to the users: blogs, multimedia sharing sites, social bookmarking and social networking sites (SNS). Facebook, Blog, Delicious, YouTube and Twitter are the tools mainly adopted by these libraries. The motives for librarians to use social media were to promote library services, manage organizational knowledge and receiving instant feedback from users. Workflow obstacles, technology obstacles, organizational obstacles and personal obstacles deter librarians from participating in social media. This study provides experiential evidence that Malaysian academic librarians are not very serious in engaging themselves with social media. Library managements need to provide support to mobilize librarians into a more active and participatory role in creating social media presence.

Object: The aim of this research is to study organizational effectiveness factors in academic libraries of Iran from viewpoints of managers and personal and is held based on Parsons’ model. The research type was an applied one and the method is survey. The study population consisted of central and faculty libraries belonging to universities of Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research & Technology. Cluster sampling method was utilized. A standard questionnaire was used as the data collecting tools. The validity of the questionnaire was evaluated by some specialists and its reliability was estimated by Cronbach’s alpha test. The obtained results showed that from managers’ viewpoints, while the difference was observed on three criteria, only on the area of "Goal attainment" no difference between the average score of respondents and optimal point was observed. From personnel’ viewpoints, there is difference between the average scores of all effectiveness factors and optimal point. "Goal attainment" criteria were first priority from manager’s viewpoints and "Legitimacy" criteria was first priority from personnel’s viewpoints. In addition, in all parsons’s effectiveness factors (adaptation, goal attainment, integration and legitimacy), the managers had a higher average score than personnel. Moreover, results showed that a significant difference found between viewpoints of managers and personnel in academic libraries of Iran based on parsons’ model. No significant difference was observed between the viewpoints of managers based on sexuality. Finally, managers and personal evaluated the effectiveness of the libraries respectively high and medium.