An Analysis of the Book Selection Behavior of Adolescent Members of Public Libraries in Iran

The correct selection of information sources significantly impacts the readability of the retrieved sources in the library. On the other hand, the collection development, organization of resources, and their classification in libraries, as well as the design of efficient and user-friendly user interfaces that sufficiently support the selection of resources, require sufficient knowledge of the behavior of choosing resources by users. Based on this, the present study aimed to identify the components of book selection behavior by adolescent members of public libraries in Kermanshah Province of Iran.

The current research was conducted with a qualitative approach, and the research method was the qualitative content analysis. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews. The participants were adolescent members of Kermanshah Province public libraries affiliated to the Iran Public Libraries Foundation in the winter of 2021. The purposive sampling, also known as judgmental sampling, was used to select participants, and continued until data saturation was reached. The qualitative content analysis method was used to analyze the findings.

The analysis of the interview data led to the formation of 12 main codes and 285 sub-codes, which were classified into 5 categories and 30 concepts. The main categories were: factors related to the user (including demographic characteristics; personality and intellectual characteristics; interest; life issues and events; previous knowledge; experiences and skills; the goals of selecting a book in public libraries; time and cost spent to select; selection strategies; the process of selecting a book; measurement of credit and quality of resources; the causes of communicating with the book and reading it up to the end; reasons for not reading or half reading books); factors related to books (including apparent and physical elements; bibliographic elements; content elements; mold, language, expression and style); factors related to the library (consisting of reading programs; environmental factors; facilities and facilities; human factors); people, media, productions, occasions, programs, and lists influencing book selection (including persons; media; production of printed works; occasions and programs; lists); and barriers to book selection in public libraries (includes: library; book; person; society).

Originality/Value: 

The behavior of selecting information resources of adolescent members of public libraries showed the complexity and influence of this behavior by numerous factors, including individual differences, appearance and content characteristics of books, environmental factors, and library factors. The components identified in the aforementioned behavior can be used as a basis for a broad survey of users’ information resource selection behavior in physical and virtual environments and can also be used as a guide for acquisition, space creation and service design in libraries, compilation of resources and appearance, and structural design of books by authors and publishers.