Survey of the Knowledge and use of the library's Information Section among users of the Central Library of Birjand University of Medical Sciences

The assessment of the Central Library member's use and Knowledge is an important step in a comprehensive planning to improve their awareness of the available facilities and services. This Study was performed to determine knowledge, and use of library services and facilities of the information section by the members of the Central Library. In This descriptive– analytical study, among 558 participants, 344 students were selected through systematic sampling and the rest (254) by means of census. A self-designed questionnaire considering the aim of the study was used to evaluate some of the facilities offered by the information section. The gathered data was analyzed by means of Mann- Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis Tests using SPSS Software (version 15) and P≤0.05 was taken as the significant level. Among 558 participants, 57%, 18%, 20% and 5% were students, staff, faculty members, and free members, respectively. 93/4% were aware of the library working hours and 16.6% were not satisfied with it. The most and the least familiarity with databases involved Irandoc and Ovid Bank (66/8%, 54%), respectively. Among the Computer Softwares, Microsoft Word was the most applicable one. Mean score (from the total of 116) of using library services and facilities was 21.719.1. There was a Significant relationship between the level of knowledge and library usage of the studied library members (P<0.001). The results showed that there is a relationship between member's Knowledge and their use of, the services and facilities of the central library.