Assessment of the position and function of Iran's Association of Library and Information Science in the process of informal education of librarians of Tehran and Khorasan provinces

One of the main tasks of associations of library and information science is to support the process of formal academic education for librarianship and planning and implementinginformal educational programs by holding educational courses, conferences, workshops, review sessions for different specialized subjects and establishing virtual and distance courses. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the function of Iran’s Association of Library and Information Science in the informal education of librarians and to determine their perspectives about the role of the association in this process. The methodology of the research is a survey with a descriptive-analytical approach. The study population is the members of the association who are residents of Tehran and Khorasan provinces. They were chosen through stratified sampling. Findings indicate that the members believed the association had been successful in holding informal educational courses for librarians. A T-test showed that, except for two factors, there is no semantic difference between the average scores of librarians resident in Tehran and in Khorasan provinces. An F-Test showed that except for three factors there is no semantic difference between the scores of the permanent, associate and student members when surveying the informal educational programs of the Association of Library and Information Science. The results also showed that there is a semantic relation between the two factors of “positive effect in job assessment and appropriateness of the days” and “the timetables for holding monthly conferences” with the factor of the ratio of education. On the other hand, the findings showed that there is a semantic relationship between the two factors “suitability of the subject of the programs with the job of the members and effective participation of the librarians in these programs” with the factor of job experience.