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Purpose: This article examines characteristics of the external environment of library and information centres of Islamic Azad University in Iran, focusing on perceived environmental uncertainty and perceived source accessibility and quality, and their impacts on the amount of scanning and the frequency of information source use. Methods: This research surveyed the library managers of ninety-four units of Islamic Azad University. Data were collected by a mail questionnaire with a response rate of 90.42%. Findings: Results show that there is a positive correlation between respondents' perceived environmental uncertainty and the amount of scanning. Additionally, perceived source accessibility and quality are associated more with frequency of information source use in environmental scanning than with perceived environmental uncertainty; and managers mostly rely on personal and internal information sources. Conclusion: This research shows that: libraries as organizations are sensitive to their external environments, and variable, complex and important events occurred in it; managers of academic libraries feel uncertainty and complexity in their decision making and rely on information sources; and the use of library and electronic information services as information source in environmental scanning ranked in a high level compared to other sources.

Purpose. This article examines characteristics of the external environment of library and information centres of Islamic Azad University in Iran, focusing on perceived environmental uncertainty and perceived source accessibility and quality, and their impacts on the amount of scanning and the frequency of information source use. Methods This research surveyed the library managers of ninety-four units of Islamic Azad University. Data were collected by a mail questionnaire with a response rate of 90.42%. Findings. Results show that there is a positive correlation between respondents’ perceived environmental uncertainty and the amount of scanning. Additionally, perceived source accessibility and quality are associated more with frequency of information source use in environmental scanning than with perceived environmental uncertainty; and managers mostly rely on personal and internal information sources. Conclusion. This research shows that: libraries as organizations are sensitive to their external environments, and variable, complex and important events occurred in it; managers of academic libraries feel uncertainty and complexity in their decision making and rely on information sources; and the use of library and electronic information services as information source in environmental scanning ranked in a high level compared to other sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses library and information science in Iran as of April 2012, with a focus on the external environments of academic libraries and environmental scanning performed by managers of central libraries from non-profit Islamic Azad Universities (IAU). Topics include determining the role of the library within its environment, incorporating rules of evolutionary biology into organization studies, and perceived strategic uncertainty (PSU). Additional information is presented on mail questionnaires and the rate of change in environmental sectors.

"Importance, variability and complexity" are more common characteristics of organizations' external environment. Managers scan the external environment in order to acquire information about events and incline to plan the organization's future courses of action. This study aims first, to investigates the manner that library and information center managers of Islamic azad University (IAU) perceived the "Importance, variability and Complexity" of the environmental sectors; and secondly, it aims to calculate the "perceived Strategic Uncertainty (PSU)" and the "perceived environmental Uncertainty (PEU)", and to account their correlation with the amount of scanning in each environmental sector. Populations of this survey are library and information center managers of large and very large units of IAU, consisting of 94 units of 232 in total. Data are collected by questionnaires by mail and face to face interviews. Results indicate that the amount of scanning is related to the perceived strategic uncertainty (range from 0.339 to 0.745) and perceived environmental uncertainty (range from 0.607 to 0.770); that is PSU and PEU of each environment sector strongly correlates with the amount of scanning. In the field of library and information centers acting as service base organizations, managers who scan the environment, customers, and technologic sectors are perceived as important, variable and complex. The great mean value of competition (mean = 3.88) in the field of complexity shows the complexity of this sector and numerous factors in the field of information services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The present paper's purpose is to review the literature related to quality assessment and performance evaluation in academic libraries, whether empirical or theoretical, and to extract key issues. It aims to explore which criteria exert a significant relationship with the academic libraries' performance quality; identify a set of criteria that appears to be useful for assessing the quality of academic libraries ITBS; and use these criteria to develop an instrument or evaluation checklist for evaluating the quality of academic libraries ITBS. Design/methodology/approach - Related keywords such as "academic libraries research", "academic libraries evaluation", "academic libraries assessment" were searched on the web as well as some leading databases. In addition, available library resources as well as online book databases were consulted. Key issues were identified, categorized and discussed to develop the evaluation checklist suggested by the paper. Findings - A number of indicators have been developed and tested in quality assessment studies debated in the paper. The literature reveals that evaluating ITBS in academic libraries should be considered to a greater extent and thus, more evaluation studies on the basis of validated tools are needed. Research limitations/implications - The review does not claim to be comprehensive. Originality/value - The paper can serve as a research roadmap concerning quality assessment of ITBS in academic libraries for researchers, managers, academic authorities and users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research aims to assess the performance of libraries at the Islamic Azad University, Sciences and Research Branch (IAUSRB) through gap analysis. To do this, a researcher-developed questionnaire which is based on available standards and quality assessment tools including ACRL standards, LibQUAL and ISO 11620, and some criteria included in the related literature was designed and distributed among users of IAUSRB libraries. Five service quality categories, were included in the questionnaire: "Environment, equipment and physical facilities", "Public services", "Non-book materials", "Staff (librarians and their co-workers)", and "Information literacy and user education". Based on research findings, the most expected library services prioritized by users are "operation time" (mean = 4.2300), "staff" (mean = 4.1461), and "circulation" (mean = 4.1208), while the least expected library services which are of lower importance from users' perspective are "press" (mean = 3.9734) and "audiovisual materials" (mean = 3.8796). The findings also indicate that services offered by the libraries surveyed had a relatively quality performance and average success (perceived quality is 2.9635≈50%). In other words, such a finding emphasizes an average performance of IAUSRB libraries. In addition, confirming five research hypotheses concerning gap analysis, there was a significant difference between expected quality of five service categories and their perceived quality based on users' viewpoint. It was also realized that the categories with better performance or perceived quality from users' perspective are "staff" (mean = 3.2240), "information literacy and user education" (mean = 2.9998), and "environment, equipment and physical facilities" (mean = 2.9871), and the two libraries "Theology and Philosophy" (mean = 2.2639) and "Medical Engineering" (mean = 2.4507) have offered poor services than the other IAUSRB libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]