Environmental Scanning For Information Gathering and Utilization for Decision-Making by Central Libraries Directors of Islamic Azad University Units in Iran

This study investigates the environmental scanning behavior of Islamic Azad Universitie's academic libraries manager in acquisition and use of information about external environment for decision making and designing of organizations future. Methodoloy: Analytical survey method used for analysis of correlation between variables. Then, 94 units of 232 of Islamic Azad Universities were selected. Data were collected by mail questionnaire. Results showed that customer (Mean=4.68), technical (Mean=4.14), and sociocultural (Mean=4) sectors were important; and customer (Mean=4.32), technical (Mean=4.07), and sociocultural (Mean=3.94) sectors were variable for manager's point of view; and the customer (Mean=4.26), technologic (Mean=3.98) and competitor (Mean=3.88) sectors were complex. Library sources (Mean=4.25), electronic information services (Mean=4.2), customer and audience (Mean=4.06), and professionals as an information source (Mean=4.06) were used in decision making frequently. Also correlation between perceived environmental uncertainty and frequency use of information sources in decision making was significant for customer and sociocultural sectors. –AA.