Information Seeking Skills in Online Databases of Iranian National Medical Digital Library: A Study among Residents of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences

Information seeking skills has an important role in independent searching and enables one to have a strong research. The aim of this study was to investigate information seeking skills among the residents of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. It was a descriptive study. Morgan sampling table used to select 248 residents from 659 residents of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. The data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire which was validated by expert and its reliability was tested with Cronbach’s alpha (0. 83). Only 3. 9% of the residents attended in Iranian National Medical Digital Library (INLM) workshop and only 16. 2% of them were registered to INLM. 38. 3% of them were familiar with up-to-date database and 25. 8% of them used it. 48. 4% of them used «advanced search». 49. 2% of them used «bullion operations» and only 13. 3% of them were familiar with databases’ facilities to manage their search results. Only 5. 5% of them always evaluated the retrieved information. Information seeking skills of residents was very low. Attending in workshops on database and information literacy can help them to improve their skills and have better research.