Survey on the religious resources study rate: A case study of public libraries in Urmia

Subject Areas : Journal of Knowledge Studies

mousa Yaminfirooz ¹ , zahra Karmikhani ^{2 *}

1 - Department of General Education, School of Medicine, Babol University of Medical Science, Babol, Iran. Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Health Research Institute, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
2 - M.Sc. in Library and Information Science, the Expert of Library Affairs and Cooperation of Urmia Public Libraries, Urmia, Iran

Received: 2021-01-12 Accepted : 2021-02-15 Published : 2020-07-22

Keywords: Public Library, Urmia, study, Religious Sources, Library Members,

Abstract :

Objective. In the present study the researchers are to investigate the level of tendency towards studying religious sources in comparison to non-religious sources among members of public libraries. Method: in this research based on descriptive- analytic method, and resorting to the list prepared by the researchers, required data were extracted from among 13 public libraries in Urmia city via SAMAN software i.e. public library management system of the country( 4 rural libraries and 9 urban libraries) including 8816 members. To categorize religious books, Dewey decimal classification (Islam Category) by Ahmad TaheriAraghi was used. For analysis of data, descriptive statistics (percent, frequency, mean and standard deviation) and for indicating the meaningfulness difference inferential statistics (T statistical test) were used. Results: According to the findings of the present study the rate of studying religious sources concerning the existing number of them in public libraries and the number of members is low. Among the total number of religious books in Urmia city public libraries (48927 volumes), 14337 volumes (29/30%) were taken by library members which showed more use among rural library members in comparison to urban library members. But the difference was not meaningful according to statistical test (P=>0.05). Conclusion: There was a meaningful difference regarding studying religious sources and non-religious ones; it means that the rate of studying non-religious sources (7/81 ± 3/32) was more than studying religious sources (0/88 ± 0/41) (Sig= 0.001).