The Factors Influencing Interlibrary Loan among Iranian Medical Sciences Libraries

Regarding the importance of providing the feasibility of information access for medical library users and the outstanding Interlibrary Loan project among Iranian universities of medical sciences, the current research has been developed to study the factors influencing Interlibrary Loan process among medical sciences libraries in Iran. This study was performed on the all central libraries of medical sciences universities in Iran. Data were collected through five-point Likert scale questionnaires. The questionnaire has been standardized during the study. Factors analysis has been done to extract & regroup the influencing factors. Moreover, the importance of each item was calculated in each group. The relationship between the responders` attitudes and their sex and work experience has been identified using different statistical tests. Results show that Interlibrary Loan process among Iranian medical libraries is influenced by different factors which are classified into four different categories: Technological, Economical, Organizational and Human-related. It seems that the technological factors have the dominant effectiveness. After that, the organizational factors have the second level of importance. Human-related and economical factors are on the third and fourth levels of importance. To promote Interlibrary Loan among Iranian medical libraries, the four mentioned categories should be taken into consider and practice because Interlibrary Loan is a multi-dimensional process, the success of which is indebted to consideration and application of the whole influencing factors and their levels of importance.