RESUMEN
Nowadays people are seeking health information to raise their awareness. They use many ways to get this information. This study examines the health information channels used by users of public libraries. The population of the present survey consisted of 461 users of public libraries throughout the country, randomly selected in a two-stage cluster sampling method
The questionnaire data were analyzed using SPSS. Cronbach's alpha value was obtained as 0.89. Friedman test showed that there is a significant difference between the preferred channels of women and men for getting health information. Most health information was obtained through TV and the Internet channels. Most of the health knowledge was gained by users through parents, family members and self-study
Libraries played a second role after parents, schools, experiences of visiting doctors and self-study. Users preferred printed materials in the libraries to get health information. Television and the Internet were the most-used information channels
he public library as one of the channels of getting health information can provide reliable updated information to the users. Strengthening the print resources in the health field and introducing and evaluating scientific updated databases must be performed
RESUMEN
Establishing order, integrity, consistency, and accuracy in thesauri as information storage and retrieval systems plays an important role in the organization of information. The deployment of universally accepted standards, therefore, facilitates the accomplishment of this goal. To achieve this goal, the ANSI /NISO Z 39.19 -2005 standard offers certain rules and principles for constructing controlled vocabularies, including the thesauri, with regard to four dimensions of form construction, semantic relationships, displaying controlled vocabularies, and management systems. These dimensions served as a basis in this study to evaluate the accuracy of vocabulary construction in three Persian Thesauri of Health and Biomedical Sciences, namely, the thesaurus of biological sciences, the thesaurus of health promotion and the thesaurus of medicine. The research method utilized in this study was the analytical survey method. A sampling method was also used to establish samples of the terms contained in the latest edition of every thesaurus. The research instrument used in this study was a checklist defined in Microsoft Excel. The samples for the four dimensions were entered in the checklist and were evaluated on the basis of the relevant standards. The results of the study revealed that the thesauri under study had not given due attention to the standards related to the management dimension. The level of observance of standards for this dimension was only 14% in all of the thesauri. Regarding the dimension of displaying controlled vocabularies, the highest level of observance of the standards was 73% which belonged to the thesaurus of medicine, the lowest level was 54.5% which belonged to the thesaurus of biological sciences, and for the thesaurus of health promotion it was 59%. As for the dimensions of the semantic relations and form construction, the results of the study indicated a higher level of observance of the standards in the thesauri under study. Finally, it was concluded that possessing the required expertise, familiarity with the standards of thesauri construction, utilizing appropriate models, taking the needs of the end users into consideration are among the major factors that if observed could lead to the construction of more effective and efficient thesauri
RESUMEN
Visualization of scientific maps enhances the awareness and general recognition of the scientific domains and their structures. It facilitates the study of the existing situation and planning of the future researches as well. The present study sought to discover and generate the scientific map of medicine in Iran between 2003 and 2007. It also aimed to determine the most effective medical subject categories in the map generated. The study follows a scientometrics trend in which all published articles of Iran indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded [SCIE] between 2003 and 2007 were retrieved. Then, these articles were limited to medical subject categories through the result analysis section of SCIE and 10247 articles were retrieved in medical subject categories as research population. NWB [Network Workbench Tool] software and ISI medical subject category co-citation were used for analyzing the articles in medicine and generating scientific maps. The scientific medical map showed that there were 61 nodes and 164 links with a weight ranging from 101 to 591. 31 nodes depicted one medical subject category, while the other nodes covered non-medical, or a combination of medical and non-medical subject categories. Medical subject categories with the highest impact included general and internal medicine, pharmacology and pharmacy, biochemistry and molecular biology, neurosciences, and research and experimental medicine. The strongest links were visible in general and internal medicine, with public, occupational, and environmental health; general and internal medicine with pharmacology and pharmacy; and pharmacology and pharmacy with neurosciences. The quantitative growth in medical articles alongside their quality is effective in scientific maps. It is necessary to encourage the categories with more effective and support the subject categories with the least impact to publish more articles and get more citation