Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Associate Professor, Knowledge and Information Science Dept, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
2 Master of Knowledge and Information Science , Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Purpose: The main purpose of the present research is to investigate the specialists’ use of specialized libraries in Iranian automotive industry research and development centers. In this regard, the manner of meeting the information needs of experts, and their satisfaction from libraries affiliated with the three major centers of automotive industry research and development including IPCO, NPDI (Iran Khodro), and Saipa, have been investigated.
Methodology: This research is conducted in a survey method and the surveyed community includes all the experts from the three centers involved in research and development processes. The total population of the survey is 855 people, and according to the Morgan table, the sample size is 265 people. Out of the distributed questionnaires, 178 (67.1%) were returned.
Research findings: Most of the experts in the Iranian automotive industry research and development centers (52.8%) use the library less than an hour per week, and their main purpose in using the library is to increase specialized information (80.8%) and to update information (47.7%). Also, it can be concluded from the results that the most widely used methods for providing information among the experts of automotive industry research and development centers are Internet searching (96.1%), and using the library at work (66.9%). Specialists of the Iranian automotive industry research and development centers use English text (11.6%), English papers (11.3%), and standards (9.7%) to meet their information needs. The degree of satisfaction in most of the experts (49.4%) from the affiliated libraries is moderate, and up to 50% of specialists are very satisfied with the library staff. The most important problems encountered by specialists in using the library are as follows: lack of resources (73.6%), outmoded resources (67.4%), unawareness of resource existence (55.1%), and limited work hours of the library ( 51.7%).
Results: The results show that most of the specialists in automotive industry research and development centers are more likely to use electronic resources, and also they sometimes while using the library encounter problems such as lack of resources, outmoded resources, unawareness of resource existence, and limited work hours of the library. The most used method for providing information among the experts working in the auto industry research and development centers is searching using the Internet
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