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Purpose: One of the factors positively affecting the service provided by public libraries is their attempt to satisfy the information needs of their domestic-cultural communities. The current study aimed to investigate the information needs and expectations of the Azeri community living in East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardabil and Zanjan provinces from public libraries. Method: This research was conducted with a quantitative approach and a survey method using a researcher-made questionnaire. The research population included librarians, users and non-users of public libraries in East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardabil and Zanjan provinces, who were selected by simple and cluster random sampling. The content and formal validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by experts in information science and social sciences. To check the reliability of the questionnaire, the test-retest method was used. The time span of the research was 2020-2021. To analyze the data and answer the research questions, statistics such as frequency, mean, and Kruskal-Wallis test were used. Findings: The results showed that social networks were the most important source of information among the users as wells as non-users of the public libraries in the studied provinces. The subjects of interest that participants expected public libraries to provide were psychology, life skills, and language education, respectively. The participants preferred non-curricular information and entertainment sources to be in both Farsi and Turkish-Azeri languages. From the perspective of the studied population, the most important point regarding the quantity and quality of information resources in public libraries was the lack of sufficient attention to resources on the culture and language of the Azeri community with an average of 4.04. Accordingly, they expected public libraries to pay more attention to the information sources on the culture and language of the Azeri community, as the group of librarians, with an average of 4.46, emphasized this issue more than other participant groups. Regarding educational needs, the findings of the research showed that teaching general life skills was the most important educational need identified by the studied society. From the users' point of view, storytelling in the national language, from the point of view of non-users, providing employment information, and from the point of view of librarians, holding cultural-artistic programs were the most important cultural-social needs of public libraries located in the studied provinces. Originality/value: The studied community had a wide range of informational, educational, socio-cultural and service needs. They emphasized the need to pay more attention to resources on the Azari language and culture. Public libraries should design and provide services and resources that fit the specific needs and expectations of the Azeri-speaking community. In this way, they will help to preserve the heritage and culture of the ethnicities and will pave the way for more visit and use of public libraries in the studied provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scientific texts are produced in Persian and available in scientific information databases through the Web. In this paper, FarsAcademic, a test collection of Persian scientific texts, has been built to implement information retrieval models among academic search comprising 102238 documents and 61 topics. While constructing FarsAcademic, we have tried to resolve the problems specific to information retrieval (IR) and natural language processing (NLP) in Persian scientific texts. Domain experts were employed to create queries within their research area, and user relevance and topical relevance were applied to improve the precision of relevance judgment of documents. Further, to improve retrieval performance in Persian scientific texts, automated query expansion was applied using one of the relevant feedback techniques, the Local Context Analysis algorithm. The result showed that query expansion techniques outperformed other information retrieval models in the Persian scientific texts retrieval task. Eventually, FarsAcademic became the only one that has been free of charge for Iranian information retrieval scholars to implement and evaluate different information retrieval models and algorithms on Persian scientific text and academic search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to investigate the effect of Customer Knowledge Management on the perceived quality of university library services through the mediating role of customer relationships at the University of Tabriz Central Library. This research is a correlational study that has been carried out using Structural Equation Modeling and survey method. The study population includes all 15732 students of Tabriz University in the academic year 2020-2021, of which 375 people were selected as a sample using stratified random sampling. A questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were analyzed using SEM with the partial least squares method. The results showed that Customer Knowledge Management had a positive and direct effect on the perceived quality of Central Library services of Tabriz University. Also, customer relationships had a mediating role in the relationship between customer knowledge management. They perceived the quality of Central Library services of Tabriz University. In other words, Customer Relationship strengthens the relationship between Customer Knowledge Management and the perceived quality of Central Library services of Tabriz University. The Central Library of Tabriz University can improve the perceived quality of services among users and their satisfaction with the library by improving customer knowledge management and customer relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In search of evidence for Wikipedia credibility, this study aims to compare and analyze articles’ references of Wikipedia and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This research approach is quantitative and has been done using bibliometric methods and citation analysis. The statistical sample of the research were 5% of the SEP entries (84 from 1685) and their equals on Wikipedia. The samples were selected randomly and systematically, then their references were analyzed and compared. The findings showed that the frequency of SEP references was about 3.5 times more than Wikipedia. The overlap of two encyclopedia's references was 2.47% of the total references. The half-life of the SEP references was significantly longer than Wikipedia. In both encyclopedias, the main resources which were used included books, journals, and websites. Regarding language of references, most of the references of both encyclopedias was in English, and citations to other language resources in both encyclopedias were almost similar. The percentage of open access and inaccessible resources on Wikipedia was higher than the SEP, while the percentage of non-open access references in the SEP was higher than Wikipedia. Finally, a comparison of the citations received by the two encyclopedia articles’ references showed that the citations received by Wikipedia references were significantly higher than SEP. This article compares the similarity of two known encyclopedias through comparison of their entities' references. Despite the similarities in the referencing pattern of the two encyclopedias, their information content comes from different resources and comparison articles’ references of Wikipedia with SEP provide no evidence for Wikipedia's credibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study measures the research productivity of library and Information science departments in the Middle East. Data were collected from 16 countries whose LIS departments had at least one article indexed in Clarivate Analytics Web of Science between 2014 and 2018. Journals’ Citation Report was also used to collect further data. In measuring research productivity, the number of departments’ articles indexed in the Web of Science database and the size of each department (number of faculties) is considered as output and input, respectively. Findings indicated that Bar Ilan University had the highest research productivity (3.7), followed by Shiraz University (1.17) and Hacettepe University (1.04). Regarding LIS Department Research productivity, Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, and Iran ranked first to fifth. The results of this research can contribute to identifying highly productive and influential departments and lay the groundwork for a well-oriented scientific policy and cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of the explanatory research is presenting a method for illustrating children's book by analyzing, monitoring and identifying the performance of illustrators and publishers of Iran children's religious books based on the social semiotic approach. Methodology: The population of the research was 34 children's religious books with religious characters' topic for alef age category (the age period, which starts from the birth to 6 years old) extracted from Iran National digital children's Library. Regarding the low amount of the population, all of them selected as sample. The tool of data gathering is a comprehensive checklist captured by a book under the title of "The Grammar of Visual Design" authored by Kress and Leeuwen (2006) that is known as the bible of analyzing the illustrated books based on social semiotic approach. Based on the special checklist, all books were evaluated and investigated quantitatively and qualitatively based on six variant elements of Composition, Point of View, Dimension, Form, Color, and Context. Findings: One of the findings of the research was evaluating religious based on social semiotic approach. In addition to these evaluations and measurements, further findings showed that the score of evaluated books based on social semiotics approach principles is as below: color (with 3.54 score), form (with 3.1 scores), composition (with 2.6 scores) and the context (with 1.28 scores). The point of view principle because of its qualitative approach evaluated qualitatively as an independent criterion. The qualitative approach in this regard showed that the point of view of authored books is the opposite, general and distant. Wholly the score of the books based on these principles is very low and it shows the low attention of publishers and illustrators to illustration principles. Evaluating the books based on publishers and illustrators showed that "Jame-ye-pazhoohesh: "JameatolQuran) are the most fruitful ones and evaluating the books based on publishers, and Masoumeh Boroumand's works are the most quality nooks illustrated for this age range and topic. Conclusion: It seems that neglecting illustration principles and unaccustomed with the visual and pictorial symbols and signs cause serious challenges and difficulties for children, teenagers and Young and cultural system of the county (Iran). Thus, it is advisable to use the necessary principles, elements, and methods for children's book illustration in compiling the suitable books for children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of co- authorship and self-citation on the citation rates of Iranian indexed articles in Web of Science (WoS). Research population included Iranian indexed articles in WoS in 2007 which had been received at least one citation. Numbers of articles in the time of research (October & November 2010) was 7355, which 390 of them, using stratified random sampling, was selected as sample. Research results showed that co-authored articles have received more citations than single-authored ones and this difference was statistically significant. On the other hand, self-citation exclusion has significantly reduced the citation rates of both coauthored and single-authored articles. After self-citation exclusion, existing difference between citation rates of co-authored and single-authored articles lost its significance. So, it can be concluded that self-citation exclusion led to reduction of citation rates of Iranian indexed articles in WoS, but this exclusion affected co-authored articles citation rates more than single-authored ones. In other words, high citation of Iranian co-authored articles in comparison with single-authored articles has been affected mainly by self-citation, not by foreign citation. This finding, which was our contribution, contradicted with results of previous researches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]