Comparison of the current situation of big data management with the desired situation in the future from the perspective of the Staff and provincial managers and IT professionals of Foundation of Iranian Public Libraries

This study explaned the current status of big data management in the public libraries affiliated to the Foundation of public libraries and compare the results with the desired situation in the future.

  An analytical survey was used. The  studypopulation consisted of 77 IT experts and provincial staff managers and librarians who were selected using cluster  and simple random sampling. The data collection tool is a structured questionnaire that has been developed through the study of domestic and foreign research and in consultation with professors and experts in the field of librarianship and information technology. The questionnaire was approved in terms of content validity ratio (CVR) and content validity index (CVI) and the reliability of the questionnaire was measured by Cronbach's alpha  (86 %.) .

The libraries are not smart and there is lack of the required data preparation and processing speed. These libraries don’t draw on big data available in social networks to analyse user preferences. Currently, only a limited context is provided for development of public libraries’ network. Big data applications, however, can provide faster access to large volumes of data, and improve the information and notification quality; even make libraries more organized and goal-oriented in the future. The results also show that, the necessary infrastructure are developed for information integration and interconnection of libraries.

In the current situation, big data is used to a very small extent in the country's public libraries, and its requirements and infrastructure are not provided. Big data will have a positive impact on the services, and these libraries need to make the necessary arrangements to use it in a timely manner.