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Success of an organization, more than anything else, depends on the human resources. Behavioral science emphasizes that organizational success mainly depends on efficient use of human resources. It is especially true in organizations such as libraries. To promote “positive thinking” ” among the staff of libraries and information centers, training courses should be arranged. To improve librarians' efficiency, these training courses should be held within the framework of an overall continuous program. In this research, the degree of “positive thinking” of librarians in 13 central university libraries affiliated to the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT) in Tehran was assessed. Using random stratified sampling and random digits’ table, 144 employees were selected from among the total 218 employees working in these libraries as sample population. An author made checklist, which was based on Ingram and Wisnicki’s 5-factor questionnaire and consisted of 30 items, was applied as data-gathering tool. Descriptive survey was applied and the results showed the average values for positive daily functioning, positive self-evaluation, others evaluation of self, positive future expectations, and self-confidence were 3.737, 3.833, 3.965, 3.94, and 3,555 respectively. Among the five options of always, often, limited, sometimes and never, which are five options of Liker’s questionnaire, the tendency was toward choosing either often or always. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the user interfaces of the most important world's children digital libraries and consider their conformity with the experts' opinions. This is done with the aim of proposing a set of unique and applicable criteria for Iranian children digital libraries that was not provided by the previous studies. The data for this study were collected by a check list for each of 6 world's most famous children digital libraries. This study applied survey as its methodology. This study showed that the compliance of the children digital libraries with selected criteria totally was 63.43 percent. Among the analyzed criteria, the criterion of "study facilities of retrieved resources" (94.33 percent) and "options for customizing the texts" (3.33 per cent) indicated the highest and lowest level respectively. From the expert's point of view, the option of "show error messages" reached the maximum and "customizing the texts" grasped the minimum levels. Finally, based on the study outcomes, a set of criteria is proposed for children digital library user interfaces. Due to the lack of a known and complete list on the web, some important children digital libraries might be missed. Also, the proposed set of criteria only can be used to evaluate the user interfaces of children digital libraries. Applying a unique set of criteria in designing children's digital Library interfaces could increase the amount of children's use of such libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Currently, share of the scientific output, citation per paper, and coauthorship for articles indexed in databases such as ISI Web of Science, are very important criteria for the evaluation and ranking of countries, researchers, institutes, articles, disciplines and journals in the world. Therefore, the main objectives of the study were to determine co-authorship, the average citation per paper and the most prolific Iranian university or institution in the field of immunology. Methods: For performing this scientometric study, we employed survey methods and citation analysis of the indexed papers in the ISI Web of Science from 1974 to 2010. Results: A total of 1775 articles by Iranian authors in the field of immunology had been indexed in the database for the aforesaid period. Most collaborations and co-authorship of Iranian authors was with their counterparts from the USA. The average citation per paper in the field was 6.26 per paper. Tehran University of Medical Sciences had the highest number of articles in the database. Conclusion: According to the results, Iranians collaborated with American peers more than any other nationality and the average citation per paper in the field of immunology is higher than that of other fields in Iran but lower than the global average. Tehran University of Medical Sciences is the most prolific university in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]