حسن بهزادی

 Given the importance of distance education, academic libraries must be prepared to support distance education services and use codified standards and criteria to evaluate their performance and improve their services. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the degree of compliance with the standards for distance education services provided by university libraries in Iran based on the standards of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). This study was a survey and applied in terms of purpose. The statistical population of this study was the managers of the libraries of Iranian comprehensive universities listed in the ranking system of universities and research institutes in Iran (2021-2022). Using the Cochran formula and simple random sampling method, the sample size of the study was calculated to be 63 libraries, of which 60 questionnaires (equivalent to 95% of the sample size) were collected after distributing the questionnaires (electronic and printed) and were used as the basis for calculation and analysis. Data collection was carried out using a researcher-made questionnaire based on the components mentioned in the distance education services standard of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) (organizational, library, and specific requirements). The validity of the research tool was also confirmed by the experts and its reliability was confirmed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient.  The findings showed that the status of providing distance education services by Iranian university libraries based on the standards of the Association of College and Research Libraries is at an average level in terms of organizational requirements. Also, according to library requirements, the service "periodic evaluation of the library's distance education services" is not complied with, and other services are also at an average level in this dimension. In the component of specific requirements, findings showed that the standards related to the sub-components of "financial responsibilities", "staff", "management", and "facilities and equipment" are at an average level, and the standards of the sub-components of "services", "resources", and "documentation" are complied with. In this regard, in the sub-component of facilities and equipment, only the standard of "the possibility of sending library resources by mail to international students" is not complied with in Iranian university libraries, but standards of the documentation component are complied with in all cases in Iranian university libraries. If university libraries in Iran go to be successful in providing distance education services and take fundamental steps, they must, in addition to addressing the existing deficiencies, take action to develop a comprehensive plan for providing and upgrading the level of their distance education services. Following a standard in this path can act as a roadmap and provide a framework for these services to the managers of university libraries in Iran. Also, libraries should take necessary steps to prioritize distance education services in their programs and include attention to this type of service in the library's goals and missions.

University libraries, being at the center of global scientific and research activities, are considered as one of the most dynamic types of libraries. They continuously utilize various technologies and strive to enhance the quality of their services. Therefore, these libraries must seek ways to improve the qualitative level of user interaction with the various operational systems within the libraries. To enhance the quality of user interaction with library systems, it is essential to establish a sense of belonging among visitors. Libraries should strive to have a better understanding of their users' experiences, particularly in areas related to information technology and online catalogs. This improvement aims to enhance the development of technology interaction, provide electronic loyalty, and foster a sense of belonging among users. The main goal of this research is to investigate the role of interactive and individual components such as cognitive absorption and computer self-efficacy in determining the level of user belongingness to the online catalog system of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad Central Library. Research Objectives are:a) To determine the level of user belongingness to the online catalog system of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad Central Library.b) To determine the role of cognitive absorption in the level of user belongingness to the online catalog system.c) To determine the role of computer self-efficacy in the level of user belongingness to the online catalog system.

This research falls into the category of applied research in terms of objectives and utilizes survey and quantitative methods. The study specifically employs a self-report approach using standardized questionnaires to assess components such as user belongingness, cognitive absorption and computer self-efficacy. The statistical population includes all postgraduate students at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, and the sample size is determined to be 367 individuals. Data collection is carried out through three evaluation questionnaires. To evaluate user belongingness, the UES questionnaire is used, while cognitive absorption and computer self-efficacy are assessed using the Agarwal and Karahanna questionnaire and a standard questionnaire, respectively. The research employs both convergent and discriminant validity for measurement models and Cronbach's alpha for reliability.

Initial examination analysis of the collected data revealed that 54.38% of respondents were female. Regarding age groups, 59.83% were in the 21-25 age group. In terms of educational level, 6.58% were pursuing postgraduate studies. Subsequently, factor analysis was employed to respond to research questions and analysis of the data. Since this research aimed to explore the fundamental variables of a phenomenon (user engagement) by summarizing a set of data to elucidate internal relationships, confirmatory factor analysis was deemed the most appropriate method for data analysis, especially to address the main research questions. Statistical analyses indicated that the level of user engagement with the OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) of Ferdowsi University's central library was relatively low. Among various components, perceived usability was only at a moderate level, with other components falling below the average. Other findings suggested that cognitive absorption and computer self-efficacy significantly influenced the level of user engagement. Higher levels of these two components were associated with increased user engagement with the central library's OPAC. Upon closer examination of specific components, it was revealed that temporal self-disposition, control, curiosity about cognitive absorption, and basic computer skills had the most significant impact, while other components had less significant effects.

The findings indicated that the level of user engagement with the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) was low. This could be attributed to the uniformity of library catalog environments, where interactions with other users (suggestions, feedback, etc.) were not emphasized. Activities such as reviewing photos, updating profiles, etc., had a considerably lesser effect on user engagement. Another reason for users' limited engagement with the library catalog could be the lack of interest and enthusiasm for library topics and content. The findings related to the first part of the research hypothesis demonstrated that each of the cognitive absorption components played a significant role in user engagement. Sub-components such as users' perception of the practicality and ease of use of the library catalog were crucial. It was inferred that if users perceive the utility and ease of use of the library catalog, their engagement with it would increase. Factors affecting practicality include compliance with user needs and ease of use of computerized lists. The findings related to the second part of the research hypothesis also showed that each of the computer self-efficacy components had a significant impact on user engagement. It can be concluded that computer self-efficacy is a crucial factor in user interaction with computer systems, encompassing beliefs and individuals' ability to use computers to solve problems and achieve goals. Higher computer self-efficacy leads to the increased familiarity with new software and tools, resulting in overall better computer performance. It can be inferred that experience in any field can serve as a foundation for subsequent experiences.

The content analysis of the scientific papers can indicate the path of development and thematic orientations in any field. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the subjecttrends of the field of knowledge and information science in Iranian journals based on the LDA model.
The current research is descriptive and exploratory; since text-mining techniques were used to identify hidden topics and topic trends in the field of knowledge and information science based on the LDA algorithm. The statistical population of the current research includes abstracts and keywords of papers published in 11 scientific journals approved by the Iran Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology in the field of knowledge and information science during 2015-2019, which includes 1581 papers. The validity of the LDA method has been confirmed in previous studies and the reliability of the extracted data was confirmed by the inter-rater reliability method.
The findings showed that, in general, the subjects of citation analysis, library, and web were the interest subjects of researchers in the field of knowledge and information science, respectively, in the first to third place. During 2015 - 2019, the subjects of "Organizational Culture", "Social Networks", "Information Literacy", "Knowledge Management" and "Instagram" were the main subjects of the field of knowledge and information science. Another finding of the research showed that in different journals, different and sometimes common topics have been of interest to researchers in the field of knowledge and information science. Knowledge management and similar and related topics such as knowledge sharing are more important in the two journals of "The Journal of Studies in Library and Information Science" and "The Iranian Journal of Information Processing & Management". Also in most journals "Librarians" and "Users" have been among the main subjects studied.
Data mining techniques can be a suitable tool to facilitate and speed up the formulation of thematic processes in a field. In order to keep up with the journals of the field worldwide, it is necessary that the topics related to technology be considered in more journals. Also, journal editors should try to publish papers based on the policy and thematic areas overtime.

'Voluntary activities' domain in public libraries is a very important and expanding topic; so that many librarians are exploring new ways to use and retain volunteers. The main purpose of this study was to determine the effective factors on preservation and maintenance of volunteer working in libraries affiliated with Astan Quds Razavi.

This applied research was conducted by survey method. The statistical population includes 200 volunteers working in the libraries of Astan Quds Razavi, which with the Cochran's formula, 131 people were determined as the sample size. A simple random sampling method was used to select the sample size of the research. The data collection tool is a researcher-made questionnaire. The model used in tool design is a three-branch model that has three main components: structural factors, behavioral factors and underlying damages. The validity of the tool was done with the opinion of information science and knowledge experts and librarians with voluntaries staff and the internal coordination of the questionnaire items with Cronbach's alpha coefficient was confirmed.

Research findings showed that among the sub-components related to structural factors, the sub-component of organizational structure had a higher priority and at the end was the service compensation system. Among the components of the behavioral factors, the sub-component of the motivational system had more priority for the volunteers, and then the organizational culture and the characteristics of the managers had the next priorities. From volunteers's point of view, behavioral factors are more important than the other two factors, and from this approach, structural factors are ranked last. It was also found that there is a positive and significant relationship between all sub-components related to structural factors and behavioral factors. Also, a positive and significant relationship was observed between the three investigated factors.

The impact and relationship of all organizational factors on the maintenance of volunteers, shows that the respective managers should have a comprehensive view on the issue of management of volunteer forces to be able to use their maximum capacity in Astan Quds libraries. In the organizational structure, attention should be paid to the determination of their position and role, while removing the strict rules on the employment of volunteer's forces. The incentive system also plays an important role in attracting and keeping volunteers, which should be taken into consideration. In order to attract and retain volunteers, managers should take measures to strengthen the sense of belonging among volunteers and optimize their capacities; otherwise, the human force that can be effective in reducing the various costs of the organization will stop volunteering after some time.

The main purpose of this research is a survey the gap between their expectations and perceived performance of SAMAN capabilities based on the expectation-confirmation theory.

This research is functional and the method of the survey is descriptive-analytical approach. Statistical study of this research is All 220 librarians working in public libraries in the province of Khorasan Razavi that use SAMAN software. The data collection tool is questionnaire. In order to access the reliability of the data collection tool, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used.

Findings showed that the gap between expectations and perceived performance is -0/415. Although, the results showed that there is little gap between expectations and perceived performance, but librarians expressed their satisfaction higher than average (3/519).

The overall result indicates that SAMAN designers should try to fill this gap by the consideration of librarians changing expectations in order to cause SAMAN capabilities more usefulness.

Cloud computing is a new technology that can help libraries and information centers to meet the information needs of users at a lower cost and faster time. The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the feasibility of implementing cloud computing in libraries of Mashhad universities.

This study was applied in terms of purpose with a survey method. The study population consisted of 23 technology managers and administrators of the libraries of Mashhad universities. Required data were collected by two researchers-made questionnaires their validity was confirmed by experts and their reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient.

The findings showed that the feasibility of implementing cloud computing in central libraries of Mashhad universities was lower than the average in terms of budget and staff, but higher than the average in hardware and software and management facilities.

Cloud computing is a new topic that has received less attention by researchers and libraries. Libraries should take advantage of this technology by providing the right infrastructure.

Today, the evaluation of information retrieval systems, especially search engines, has become one of the most important studies in the field of information science. Nevertheless, a research as a review research on the evaluation of search engines was not observed. So, the aim is to analyze the related literature of information retrieval evaluation field using quantitative, qualitative and mixed approaches.

This research is a review study to review the related articles. The terms »arzyabieh motor kavosh«,»arzyabieh nezam bazyabieh ettlaat«,»arzyabieh rabt«,»motor kavosh«,»motor jostejo« in the Magiran and SID database were searched. Also, the terms »evaluation search engine»،«evaluation information retrival»،«method and information retrieval«, »research and search engine« and »relevance« in the google scholar was searched and then the retrieved articles were studied. Finally, the research on the evaluation of general search engines published in Persian and English from 1998 have been studied using a library method and an analytical approach..

The results showed that, in the reviewed studies, the search engines evaluation has conducted through one of the quantitative, qualitative and mixed approaches. In the quantitative approach, there are several research categories such as coverage and overlap, abstracting and indexing quality, retrieval algorithms, recommender systems, interface and document ranking quality. In the qualitative approach, there has been observed two kinds of studies which include ethnography and grounded theory. In the ethnography research, the users’ information retrieval behavior is described. In the other category, namely grounded theory, two research areas may be identified; one is fully committed to the qualitative principles and another semi-committed to them. Hence, Hjorland (2010) has criticized researchers who regard their research as a "functional" and qualitative approach, but did not follow all of their principles.

As in the research methodology, first, a quantitative method and then a qualitative method are proposed and finally, a mixed method is proposed to use the strengths of both methods. It seems that this process of change in research methods from quantitative to qualitative, and then from qualitative to composite has also affected the evaluation of information retrieval, especially search engines. In data retrieval research, a systematic approach has been initially introduced in evaluating information retrieval systems. Then some researchers have criticized this approach, which is the result of a user-oriented approach. In recent years, researchers such as Saracevic (2007) and Thoronley (2012) have considered both approaches as necessary ones and pointed to a dual-axis approach to data retrieval assessment research.

Strengthening the thinking of the gens is essential for the present and future growth of the child and society, and the children's literature can play an important role to develop thinking and creativity skills. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the extent to which Gilford's components of creativity were used in Persian magazines for children.

This study is an applied research. The statistical population of the research consisted of Persian children's magazines, covering three content (fictions, non-fictions and pictures), published by 21 prestigious Persian magazine of children and adolescents listed in the year in the division of the Children's Book Council. A stratified random sampling method was used for each of the triple types of content that was 413 non-fiction articles, 152 fiction articles, 433 picture stories and 442 images of nonfiction content. Survey research and content analysis were used to identify components of Gilfor'ds creativity in the content of magazines. A researched-made check-list was the tool for gathering data. The validity of the tool was based on previous research and its reliability was confirmed by intra-group correlation coefficient. It was validated in each phase through consultation with specialists in Children's literature and Information Science.

The findings showed that the mean of Gilford's creative thinking components varies in the content of fiction, nonfiction, and magazine publishing. In the fictional material, the most commonly used component in the storytelling of all journals is the sensitivity component to the problem with the mean of 7.5 and the lowest average is the complexity and then the combination.In non-fiction articles, it was also found that the average rate of addressing the problem sensitivity component among non-fiction articles was more than the other components, and the least amount of meanings belonged to the evaluation component. It was also found that in pictures, the most average is the sensitivity to the problem, while the amount of attention to the components of creativity in the pictures of children's magazines is small. Another finding showed that the means of the components of creative thinking in non-fiction pictures are more than fictional images, and they have become more relevant to these components. It was also found that in the material of the magazine Tricycle, in non-fiction articles from the magazine, in the narrative images of Soroush Magazine, and in the non-fiction pictures of the magazine, Candles magazine have been able to pay more attention to the components of creativity than other magazines.

The Persian journals should pay more attention to the issue of creativity, which would not be possible with their current approach and should be revised in the policy of publishing their works and try to find out what obstacles they encounter in tackling them.

The doctrine of representationalism is rooted in the philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences, but it can also be traced in the philosophy of language. The purpose of this paper is to apply representationalist approaches in language and meaning to knowledge and information science research. Therefore, in the first part, the application and achievements of representationalism for information retrieval action are analyzed. Studies are categorized according to their level of concern to language and meaning in organization and information retrieval. Then, in the second part, the representational approaches to Language in Information Retrieval Action (LIRA) are analyzed and criticized in the related research. In this analysis, philosophical approaches have been considered because the roots of representationalism can be traced in semantics and semiotics in linguistic approach. Representationalism with emphasis on the linguistic dimension in the organization and information retrieval research is a theory that is advocated due to the constant relationship between words and the world they represent. In this study representationalism in semantic tools (such as thesauri, subject headings, and classifications) consists of all processes (from indexing to user information searching and retrieval) called Information Retrieval Action (IRA), and can be criticized in various ways. Some studies focus on the nature of knowledge representation and find it in the philosophy of language. Some theoretical studies criticize representationalism by addressing cognitive sciences and related areas in the information representation and retrieval or by focusing on fundamental issues in the philosophy of language and its relation to information retrieval. Others go beyond linguistic level and analyze IRA in terms of semiotics and in connection to meaning. Some studies account for the representation (in knowledge organization and especially in classifications) not as a linguistic but paradigmatic issue at the level of modernist domination in the modern era against which postmodernism stands. Finally, this inquiry illustrates that information retrieval has been rooted in the paradigm of empiricism and positivism in these areas. Representationalism places the mind at the center of cognition and ignores other aspects such as context, culture and use of them. The changes that have taken place over time to overcome the problems in the field of retrieval, such as those of headings and thesauruses and the achievement of ontologies and folksonomies, illustrate the shortcomings of these paradigms arising from representational approaches to language and needs to be changed in favor of a pragmatic view point.

Intruduction: 

The aim is to briefly describe the pragmatist philosophy and to explore and analyze the pragmatist approach to the concept of relevance in information retrieval.

The article is a conceptual analysis that uses the Theory of Activity and literature review to explain what is happening in practice so that a person in need of information can solve his or her information needs. The theory of Activity is a comprehensive theory, by which the pragmatist approach of relevance concept is explained.

The system-oriented approach and the user-oriented approach have their origins respectively in the positivism and the hermeneutics. Only the studies on the evaluation of information retrieval (relevance) will be successful which have benefited both from the system-oriented approach and user-oriented one in studies in which all aspects of the relevance concept are considered. Pragmatists argued that a false dichotomy exists between two quantitative and qualitative approaches, and one may combine the two approaches so that the combination focuses on action. According to the pragmatic school, a document which is used is relevant. On the one hand, A can be considered relevant to task 1, only if A can help a person to achieve his/her goal and answer his/her information needs. On the other hand, that document in terms of its facial and intrinsic features should be in accordance with the need of the person who needs information, accepted by the culture of the intended community and accessible for the individual who needs information. In other words, a document that actually meets information needs is actually relevant.

Relevance is a complex concept and various factors affect its final outcome. Hence, in spite of numerous studies on the concept of relevance, further research is needed on this subject. Finally, one can say that thinking of the philosophy of science is necessary to understand the concept of relevance according to whether the purpose of science is to describe what is actually happening and is easily visible to us, or science should explain what is not readily apparent, and to determine it.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Parsijoo, Yooz, and Rismoon search engines to determine the efficient search engine to retrieve relevant documents to users.

This research was an applied evaluative study. The population of this research consists of three sections: Persian search engines, simulated work tasks (thematic title), and participants (students). In this study, three search engines, Parsijoo, Yooz, and Rismoon, were selected for evaluation. Also, 32 subject headings were selected from the list of Persian subject headings, and then, based on them, simulated work tasks were compiled. 192 students of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad were asked to search the information created from the simulated work tasks in the relevant search engines, then copy the relevant URL and register it in the search form. The 192 students of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad were asked to enter the information required from the simulated work tasks in the relevant search engines, then copy the relevant URL and register it in the search form. Finally, when an URL was chosen more often by students as a relevant website, it was given a higher relevance score.

Findings showed that the three search engines including Parsijoo, Yooz, and Rismoon had a significant difference in the metrics of normalized discounted cumulative gain, and precision, but no significant difference was observed between the three search engines in the recall metric. The general findings of the study also showed that the effectiveness (mean of normalized discounted cumulative gain, precision, and recall) of the search engines was significantly different. In addition, at a 95 percent confidence level, the effectiveness of Parsijoo about 42 percent to 45 percent; Yooz about 43 percent to 46 percent; and Rismoon about 15 percent to 17 percent are estimated. Our estimate indicates that the Rismoon search engine is performing poorly. Also, the effectiveness of Yooz search engine is slightly higher than Parsijoo search engine.

Each of Parsijoo, Yooz, and Rismoon search engines has their own policies, capabilities and strategies; hence the effectiveness of each of them is different. Users are advised to use efficient search engine to get the information they want. In this regard, Yooz, Parsijoo, and Rismoon search engines are the most efficient, respectively. In addition, policymakers of Parsijoo, Yooz, and Rismoon search engines are also recommended revising hardware equipment, retrieval algorithms, user interfaces, and information display methods. Finally, it can be concluded that despite the low age of native search engines, the effectiveness of both Yooz and Parsijoo search engines is at a satisfactory level.

This paper aims at gaining a deep understanding of representationalism in knowledge organization and information retrieval analyzing foundations of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language.

The method used is logical inference. The approach is theoretical and argumentative. Accordingly, its feature and nature is speculative.

Representationalism is the indirect realism rooted in seventeenth-century Cartesianism, in Locke and Hume's eighteenth-century empiricism, and in Kant's idealism. Language in this early period of modern philosophy, had no material existence and was fully used to regulate ideas. Since its main consideration is the subjectivity, it is not necessary to enhance the status of language that acts as an intermediary connecting subject with object and that expresses the meanings of the object; since early modern philosophy does not concern itself with the issue of intersubjectivity and the relationship between “I” and “the other,” it is not necessary to pay heed to the function of language that serves as a bridge among subjects or consciousnesses (let alone among cultures). The emphasis of representationalism in the philosophy of mind is that ideas and perceptions are superior to language, and language is the only representation of thoughts. In the philosophy of language, representationalism means that language is like a mirror representing concepts, and meaning is fixed according to this representationalist view of language as well.

Representation is an accepted principle in the field of knowledge organization and information retrieval. Accordingly, the issue of representation is addressed according to representationalist approaches. In order to understand representationalism in this field and its connection with language and meaning, it is necessary to pay attention to this theory and its prepositions in philosophy. Our study showed that the theory of representationalism was indicative and supportive of a marginal rather than a central view of language. Accordingly, changing the representationalist approach to language in information science, can help our field to improve its semantic information retrieval systems. We seek to retrieve relevant and meaning-based information. To present in detail the theory of representationalism in relation to language and meaning in these areas requires further study. Here, we only showed the presuppositions, origins, and leaders of the theory in philosophy of mind and language.

Experiences of teaching Integral have indicated that the vast majorities of Iranian university students commit numerous errors while solving integral problems and have weak skills in this field; we might even say that they hide away from integral and consider it the nightmare of mathematics‎. ‎On the other hand, Integral is the base of pure and applied mathematics for all students of science‎, ‎especially engineering‎, ‎which some of their lessons are dependent on it directly or indirectly‎, ‎so it is important to pay attention to it‎. ‎Through descriptive method-exposed factor, ‎an exam has been conducted in the form of three questions‎, ‎the first of which is consisted of 4 sections on fifty students from different fields, and then interviews were conducted with a few of those students about their answers in order to study the students' behaviors when solving integral problems and to determine the type of their errors‎. ‎By analyzing the performance of students in this test‎, ‎we can see that students often struggle with integral and mostly have a feeble performance in solving trigonometric integrals‎. ‎They want to learn computational integral instead of how to conceptualize integral in their minds correctly‎. ‎The error most committed by university students was procedural errors‎, ‎which arise from using derivative instead of integral‎. ‎Besides most of the mistakes happen in solving definite integrals‎, ‎and calculating finite areas between two curves‎. ‎This is due to a lack of understanding of integrals and a lack of information in other areas of mathematics.

Mind map is a full-color illustrated note-taking in which, main idea or subject is situated. The main ideas then branch out from the center, which are linked to the central idea. This is a relatively new topic, and slight research has been conducted to show its effectiveness worldwide. The aim is to examine the effectiveness of mind maps in the information retrieval process.

This is an applied in terms of purpose and in order to collect information about the familiarity and use of graduate students with mind maps by survey method. The present study also investigates the effect of mental map tools on quasi-experimental information retrieval. The statistical population of the present study includes all graduate students (Master and PhD) of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in 2016-2017, in four areas: humanities, basic sciences, engineering and agricultural sciences. The statistical sample size of the first phase of the research includes 224 graduate students and 127 doctoral students. The total size of the laboratory population is 30 people. The sampling method of the first stage is stochastic research of relative classes. The sample size of the second stage of the laboratory is purposeful. A questionnaire was used to collect data in this study. Cronbach's alpha of questionnaire number one is more than 0.8 and questionnaire number two and three is more than 7%.

Analysis show that the level of familiarity with mind maps and its use by graduate students at Ferdowsi University is below average. The average overall level search satisfaction with the whole search process in the second stage (3.833) is higher than the first stage (3.704). The average effectiveness of the whole search process in the second stage - with the help of mental map (359/3) is more than the first stage of the search process - without mental map (2.332).

Mind maps are effective tools in the process of information retrieval that can be used with careful, purposeful planning and in consultation with experts in the field of information retrieval and information science. Information systems, search engines, information needs, etc. are among the areas in which mind maps can be examined.

The important role of cognitive biases aspects at different stages of information retrieval is mentioned in most information retrieval models. So, it is necessary to understand cognitive aspects of behavior and human interaction. Since one of effective cognitive aspects in information searching is cognitive biases and users experience them, the effect of these biases should be considered. According to this, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of demographic variables in frequency of cognitive biases in information retrieval. The method of this study is survey; in terms of purpose, this is an applied research implemented in combined method (qualitative and quantitative). The research population was graduate students of the Ferdowsi University (humanities students and engineering students) that were studying at this university in second semester, 1397-1398. In this research, data were collected using the stratified sampling method. The required data for this research was gathered based on log file and semi-structured interview that were based on check list of different cognitive biases.  The content validity of interview questions was evaluated by KIS and psychology specialists and the reliability of both instruments is also correlated with the coefficient of agreement between the opinions of two evaluators that was 0.95. The results showed that in the cognitive biases, including “anchoring”, “attention” and “mere exposure”, there was a significant difference between the frequency of these biases occurrences in users based on gender. Also, in the cognitive biases, including “overconfidence”, “recency”, “attention” and “availability”, there was a significant difference between the frequency of these biases occurrences in users based on grade (M.A. And PhD). Other findings showed that in the cognitive biases, including “regency” and “attention”, there was a significant difference between the frequency of these biases occurrences in users based on field of study (humanities and engineering). Based on the findings of this research, it can be concluded that designers of information retrieval systems and librarians should pay attention to the demographic variables (gender, degree and field of study) in designing and evaluating of information systems because these variables can affect frequency of some biases occurrences in information searching. Of course, the impact of factors like age group, character types, mental schemas, culture and information literacy rate should not be overlooked.

Academic library services are important to all students. However, research shows that international students face some barriers in utilizing library resources and facilities. This study seeks the viewpoints of international students and librarians at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in this regard

The Cochran formula using simple random sampling method was employed to determine. Each the two groups of 36 library staff and 295 students filled one of the two researcher developed questionnaires,. Validity was assessed by experts and its reliability was measured by Cronbach's alpha.

The international students' satisfaction with the services was high, except with regard to the audio- visual materials (CDs, etc.). Librarians also viewed the services in line with the needs of international students. There is also a significant difference between the librarians and international students' perception of the differences between international and native students.

The Libraries of Ferdowsi University should provide different services to their international students, and librarians should pay attention to the differences between international students and native students.

In order to design user-friendly information retrieval systems, it is important to pay attention to characteristics of users. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to investigate the role of demographic variables of users during their search in search engines.

This is an applied study in terms of purpose, which was done by the evaluation method. To conduct the research, firstly, 32 subject headings were selected from the "Persian Subject Headings" and simulated work tasks were developed based on the selected subject headings with the cooperation of three experts in knowledge and information science. Then, according to the characteristics of the population, such as gender, grade and field of study, age and residential area of the students of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, 192 people were selected as sample members. The research form was then given to them, which consisted of three sections: demographic information, simulated work tasks, and a place to record relevant links. They were then asked to study the simulated work tasks that they had developed based on the selected subject headings from the Persian Subject headings, and search in Google, Parsijoo, Rismoon, and Yooz search engines in Persian language, and then to record the relevant URLs in the given form. Finally, based on the recorded URLs, the relevance score of the students' retrieved results was calculated according to the Jaccard index. To determine the validity of the research tools, the opinions of faculty members of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad were asked as well as the relevant literature was reviewed. Pearson test was also used to determine the reliability of the study, which confirmed the reliability of the study with a correlation coefficient of 0.725.

The findings indicated that the FUM students’ judgement relevance scores with a 95% confidence level were about 0/36 to 0/42. Furthermore, there were significant differences between the students' judgement relevance scores in terms of their educational levels, age groups and their residential areas, while there were no differences between the student's judgement relevance scores in terms of gender and academic field.

It can be said that paying attention to both personalization and customization in designing information retrieval systems will satisfy users. Thus, this paper finally directs the attention of information managers and designers of information retrieval systems to this fact that in designing information systems, more attention must be paid to the three demographic variables, namely education levels, age groups, and residential areas.

The main purpose of this paper is to study the attitudes and readiness of Mashhad's academic librarians toward mobile learning and applying it in academic libraries.

This study used a survey method. The statistical population of this research was 70 employed librarians in Mashhad state universities (Medical and Ferdowsi universities). The sample size was determined 59 subjects according to Cochran’s formula and the data were collected by using the stratified random sampling method. The instrument of the study was a researcher-made questionnaire that its validity was confirmed by professors in the field and its reliability calculated using Cronbach's alpha (0.79).

The results showed that 85% of respondents did not have any information about mobile learning; however, they were interested to know more about it. All librarians have used at least one of mobile devices for personal affairs in their life. In addition, attitude and readiness of the librarians toward mobile learning were upper than the average value.

Librarians‘ positive attitudes to and their readiness for mobile devices show the importance of these devices and also mobile learning provides a good opportunity for academic librarian managers to use these devices in their library services.

Information literacy treatment is a new concept that is an important part of the disease process and patients should have good information in this area. Therefore, the main purpose of the present study is a study of the needs and information resources for cancer patients in the components of information literacy treatment. The research is an applied type that was conducted by survey method. The statistical population of the study consisted of 570 cancer patients who completed their treatment stages at Omid Hospital in Mashhad. They were referred to this center at the time of conducting the research. 230 patients were selected by stratified random sampling as sample size. Data were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire that includes 37 items for 6 components of information treatment literacy (medications, treatment, nutrition, tests, treatment costs and sport) as well as 19 items on various sources of information literacy treatment. The method of scoring the questionnaire was based on a Likert scale (from 1 to 5). The validity of the questionnaire has confirmed by specialists and stability of the questionnaire also approved considering to Cornbrash's coefficient alpha. To calculate the Cronbach's alpha coefficient, 30 questionnaires were distributed among the sample, the results showed that in all dimensions of the questionnaire, the coefficient was more than 9/0. The findings showed that among 6 components of information literacy treatment, 5 components such as medication, treatment, nutrition, testing and treatment costs are the most information needs of the patient and their least information needed was allocated with an average of 2.72 in the sport component. In relation to the information resources, the lowest mean refers to educational classes and the hospital librarian and only in 5 sources, the average was higher than the average level (3), these sources of information were in the order of average: "therapist", "other non-specialists in the disease", "hospital nurse", "nurse in the department of chemotherapy", and "other patients with the same illness". Patients' resources and how to understand the use of information resources should be given special attention because patients are exposed to a wide range of information sources. The role of hospital librarians in this regard can be very high, as they can provide information to the medical staff and also patients because they have enough cognitive information resources and they have the ability to identify quality and reliability of information.

The purpose of the study is to identify the appropriate research method(s) for interdisciplinary sciences, including knowledge and information science. In this regard, this is an analytical review article concerning some important philosophical schools related to research methods in which the characteristics of each philosophical school is mentioned and discussed. The findings show the positivist, pragmatist, realistic and Parmenides philosophical schools may be regarded as reductionist approaches which tend to discover the laws of nature; the existentialist and Heraclitus philosophical schools are holistic which tend to consider the change of entities. Since, it is the nature of the problem and the subject of the research that determine the appropriate research method and philosophy; Hence, for interdisciplinary sciences that often have complex, multi-faceted problems, the use of dual philosophical schools such as Plato’s philosophy (the composite approach) is more appropriate. It seems awareness of the fact that every research follows a series of philosophical assumptions has implications on how problems in the knowledge and information science should be studied.

The purpose of this research was determining the relationship between the information literacy and psychological security of BA students at Ferdowsi Mashhad University in the cyberspace. The current research is correlational in terms of procedure; the information is obtained by means of two information literacy and psychological security questionnaires and the data is collected by field technique. In order to confirm the validity of the research tools, we asked some of knowledge and information science professionals and some psychology specials and to analyze the reliability of the test, we used Cronbach’s alpha. In the information literacy section, the Cronbach’s alpha was 0.78 and for the psychological security section, the Cronbach’s alpha was 0.83, suggesting that the tools are reliable. The statistical population involves all of the 11245 BA students who at the moment studied at Ferdowsi Mashhad University. With regard to the statistical population features, random stratified sampling was used for this purpose and 371 individuals were selected for the current research. Findings: The findings showed that the level of information literacy was not satisfactory in BA students but the psychological security is at a high level. Also there is a significant relationship between these two variables. It turned out that there is a difference between the level of information literacy and psychological security in BA students at Ferdowsi Mashhad University in terms of gender and different academic fields. By increasing the level of information literacy, so many challenges can be reduced in the virtual networks.

the aim was to identify users' search strategies and the rate of using search strategies on the web. It is a practical survey. The statistical population included all the postgraduate students in the first semester at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. 95 students were selected by stratified random sampling method. To gather the data, log files were used. 12 search strategies were identified which was divided into 5 general categories. Iterative evaluation strategy in another tab was a new form of evaluation strategy of results. Among all, starting search strategies were the most commonly used category which were repeated 397 times, and the search results evaluation strategies were ranked afterward, with 321 replications. The category of Simultaneous multiple resource access strategies, with 77 repetitions, were also the least used strategies, but in particular, the recurring exploration strategy, with 21 repetitions, was the least applicable strategy. Conducting correlation test between strategies showed that some of Pearson's correlation coefficients were significant. The strongest relationship was between the starting search strategies and the search result evaluation strategies with a 0.591 correlation coefficient. The results showed that the majority of students used traditional and simple strategies, such as the formulation of search terms strategy and the iterative result evaluation strategy, and they used more complex strategies in few cases. These results showed that the students need to be trained in using strategies.

Treatment information literacy addresses the patients’ therapeutic information during the treatment process, which should be properly identified and directed. The purpose of study was to construct and validate treatment information literacy acquisition questionnaire for patients with cancer. The study population in this survey research was 570 patients with cancer undergoing treatment at Omid hospital in Mashhad, Iran. The sample consisted of 227 patients who were selected via stratified random sampling. The used tool was a researcher-made treatment information literacy questionnaire which was distributed in June 2017. Content Validity Ratio (CVR) and Content Validity Index (CVI) were used to determine the content validity while the Bartlett sample spheroid test was used for the structure validity. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to measure the reliability of the designed questionnaire. Among 40 items of the questionnaire, 37 items were accepted by CVR. Furthermore, the score of the CVI was 0.76 which indicated the validity of the tool. The significance of the Brutel test was 8250.258d and the significance level was 0.001, which indicated that the sample size was suitable for performing factor analysis of patient treatment information literacy components. The results of factor analysis showed that the prepared questionnaire was multidimensional, and had 6 components which according to percentage of variance and special value included drugs, treatment methods, nutrition, experiments, treatment costs, and sport (exercise). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for all components of the questionnaire was higher than 0.7 in the pretest and final test, which indicated the reliability of the tool. This questionnaire helps medical teams in charge of patients with cancer to recognize the information needs of their patients in various components of treatment information literacy, and to meet their information needs

A user's mental model is his/her mental image of the system and how it operates. Studies have demonstrated that user's information seeking behavior is different and this difference is depended on the user's mental models of the system. Indeed, people’s thinking, behavior, and activities are guided by their mental models in the interactive contexts. Furthermore, there are different factors that influence mental model formation of the system. So, this study aims to investigate the factors affecting master students̓ mental model completeness level of Google web search engine.
From the methodological perspective, this research is a practical one based on the survey method. The research sample consisted of 30 master students from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad majoring in engineering science and social/human sciences who were selected purposefully and participated voluntarily. The main tools for gathering data are semi-structured interviews (based on mental model completeness scale (Li, 2007)), group embedded figure test, Kolb learning style inventory and information literacy questionnaire. Therefore, student's mental models scores were measured by interviewing and after that the relationship between their scores and other research variables was investigated according to the following questions:1. Is there a significant relationship between students̓ mental model completeness level of Google web search engine and their cognitive style?
2. Is there a significant difference between students̓ mental model completeness level of Google web search engine and their learning style?
3. Is there a significant relationship between students̓ mental model completeness level of Google web search engine and their information literacy?
4. Is there a significant difference between students̓ mental model completeness level of Google web search engine and their academic fields?
5. Is there a significant difference between students̓ mental model completeness level of Google web search engine and their gender?
FINDINGS: The results showed that there was a significant relationship between student's mental model completeness level and cognitive style. In other words, field independent students had more complete mental models than field dependent students. On the other hand, there was no significant difference between student's learning style and mental model completeness level. It was also observed no significant relationship between their mental model completeness level and information literacy, but there was a significantly, positive and moderate relationship between their mental model completeness level and information retrieval component. Also, there was a significant difference between student's academic field and mental model completeness level, so that the students majoring in engineering sciences had better mental models than students majoring in social/human sciences. On the other hand, there was no significant difference between student's gender and mental model completeness level.
According to the findings, it is important to consider factors affecting mental models in designing user-friendly interfaces, personalization of systems and user training. In such a way, our systems and user trainings become more effective. By designing systems based on the cognitive style, users can develop better mental models, have more effective search strategies and be more satisfied. Furthermore, investigating the relationship between learning style, information literacy, gender and mental model requires more researches with more participants.