Comparative evaluation of the hospital library websites accessibility in Iran

This paper aims to provide some insights into the accessibility criteria of web evaluation in the general and professional hospital libraries. Taking a critical approach, this article examines the professional and general hospital libraries to conduct a reliable accessibility assessment. The data was collected through an investigatory checklist, consisting of 9 components and developed by the researchers based on the literature review. The desired website was evaluated according to this checklist. In order to analyze the research findings, descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage) and statistical inference were used and the software applications such as SPSS and EXCELL were applied.The statistical population of research includes the libraries of 24 hospitals. In general, the results showed that the accessibility evaluation of Iran's professional hospital libraries (in comparison with the overall assessment of compliance of all criteria, in index website, with 77 points) is 87 percent and that of the general hospital libraries is 83 percent. However, the design of hospital Library Websites should be completely based on the functions that support the main objectives of the hospital libraries, especially in information retrieving as well as rendering medicine information services. Information and communication technology tools, especially hospital websites and e-mail services, have such a capabilities that changes programs and methods, informs in an appropriate way and as a consequence, economical services will be provided with a wide range of users. In addition, hospital websites as an important communication system can be used in social crises and disasters.