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Purpose: The present research has been devoted to study the status of preparing and purchasing the electronic resources in Tehran governmental specialized libraries from viewpoint of library managers, and it surveys current status of electronic resources, how they are prepared and purchased, and problems of preparing these resources in Tehran governmental specialized libraries.
Methodology: The methodology of this research is of survey-descriptive type, in which data collection was accomplished by a questionnaire. The population under study included 86 managers of Tehran governmental specialized libraries, among which 60 of them (70%) filled the questionnaire and hand it out, so the findings are based on data collected by these 60 questionnaires. Analysis of this study by descriptive statistics was achieved using Excel and SPSS software.
Findings: The findings that no electronic resources existed in 10 libraries; 28 libraries possessed all three types of electronic resources (books, journals, and databases); one or two types of electronic resources existed in 22 libraries. In most specialized libraries the electronic resources existed, but their amount is very few for specialized libraries considering the increasing growth of such resources in libraries worldwide as well as the advantages of electronic resources. Major problems in preparing electronic resources were expressed as cost of purchasing them, cost of purchasing equipments necessary for using these resources, and making decision for choosing the type of electronic resources. In most specialized libraries in Tehran less than 10% of the library’s budget is allocated to preparing and purchasing the three types of electronic resources.
Originality/Value: Though numerous studies have been performed concerning electronic resources and related issues, the status of preparing and purchasing these resources from viewpoint of library managers have not received much attention. The obtained results of this research helps the organizations and institutions which make decision in publication of electronic resources to gain more understanding of the current status of electronic resources and the level of purchasing these resources in specialized libraries, so as to make changes in their policies for production and providing the electronic resources. Furthermore, the findings of this study can be regarded as a criterion for evaluating how much the specialized libraries are updated and efficient.
 

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Purpose: Reading is one of the challenging problems in contemporary Iran. After the Persian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911), reading becomes one of the factors that Iranians considered it necessary for modernization and development. For this reason, most people, even who were literate, had no desire to read. This situation was unpleasant for intellectuals, publishers and cultural activists, and therefore they published essays and articles about this issue. These publications grew significantly during the 1960-1970s. As we can see in these documents, the main idea was that Iran society has encountered by a "Reading Crisis".  This study aims to describe this idea under the Reading Crisis discourse. Moreover, it seeks to show how the articulation of this discourse was affected by discursive practices and social practices.
Method: The methodology used in the present research is the Fairclough's critical discourse analysis (CDA). Based on this method, First, the articles about reading which were published from 1905 to 1978 were searched and categorized into discourses and then those documents were chosen that were tagged as “reading crisis discourse” (45 texts). These documents were then coded during the next two stages: first, each fragment of the texts was tagged by one or more elements of Fairclough's CDA model (433 fragments); then, similar text fragments were categorized and tagged. The coding process continued until sufficient data to describe all the selected discoursive components were collected, and the present researchers were able to find a logical relationship between the data.
Findings: The findings indicate that publishers are the main speakers of this discourse. As for-profit institutions, they seek more profit, but in order to gain legitimacy, they use cultural language and try to show Iranian society has a big problem and people do not read enough. They call this a crisis and claim that government must intervene and facilitate buying books by subsidies. They say that government must pay subsidies to publishers as a way to reduce book price. On the other hand, government seek a way to eliminate the voice of the protesters or voices that did not match the main discourse and central power and thus to censor books. As a result, government grants privileges to publishers, provided that they publish good books. During the time, most publishers became the collaborators of government in censorship in order to safeguard their interests. In this discourse, the reader is for the most part represented as the buyer, and reading is roughly equivalent to buying. Book, as the main media of discourse, is divided into two groups: bad books and good books: good books are ones supporting the government's idea of development and modernization. Censorship mechanism is the gatekeeper of bad books; and public libraries, “Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults” and “Children's Book Council” are promoters of good books.
Originality/value: The book crisis discourse in Iran is still alive and powerful. By knowing the origins and mechanism of this discourse, reading promoters and other social actors avoid mistakes that may damage their valuable efforts.

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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) highly affected the people anywhere in the world. Iran has also been highly affected by this disease. We do not know if it is either a man-made or natural disease, which is beyond the scope of this paper. In any case, each disaster has two sides and brings both limitations and opportunities, and we must try our best to change the limitations into opportunities. In fact, living in difficult situations makes people strong and resistant and forces them to find suitable solutions.
One of the opportunities COVID-19 brought for us is that it proposed another way of living: some people were ready for it, some accepted reluctantly and some must be compelled to prepare for it. 
COVID-19 taught us that we can have our cultural activities in less expensive way, provided that the electronic infrastructure is ready, and the men in charge are well elected and responsible; It taught us that we must not waste our educational courses with unnecessary works; it proposed a competitor state of educational teaching seriously. It also showed us if someone does not try his/her best, his/her job would be omitted very soon in the era of calamity.
With the worldwide spread of COVID-19 in Iran as well as in other countries, the IRIB TV provided teaching programs and Iranian school students began using it. If virtual services are provided, libraries can easily serve people in this situation. Now, the Iranian “Social Network of Students” (in Persian, acronymically abbreviated to “SHAD”) and another program called the “TV School of Iran” are two successful programs which are aimed to continue their services after the eradication of COVID-19 as well.
In these days, libraries should also become more active, and try their best to answer the educational, cultural and social needs of people. If libraries want to compete with others in cultural and sociological activities, and if librarians do not want to be only knowledge keepers, as Millville Dewey had mentioned, they have to find new ways in competition. They have to be more active and change their way of service to people.
It seems that Iran Public Libraries Foundation has to supplement the existing educational and cultural services with establishing school digital libraries. Some recommendations are as follows:

1. Book publishing should be hybrid (it should include both print and electronic publishing);
2. Virtual book fairs in attractive forms must be held;
3. All people should be widely informed that their educational needs are met or can be met at low costs and librarians are be accessible anytime and anywhere as soon as possible.

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Purpose: Childhood is one of the most important periods in the formation of people’s character which the positive points as an integral part of the human being can be strengthened with a variety of indirect methods. According to this fact, storytelling can be among the attractive methods that are very effective since it arouses emotions and curiosity of the child, and is useful in teaching a variety of concepts, including altruistic behaviors. Accordingly, this study was aimed to determine the effect of storytelling on growing the altruistic feelings and behavior of primary school boys aged 7 to 12 in Kermanshah.
Method: This research is an applied and quasi-experimental study using a pretest-posttest design on an experimental group and a control group. The study population consisted of 20 boys aged 7 to 12 years old in Kermanshah. Since the research was conducted in summer and there was no access to educational facilities, the study sample (who lived in Kermanshah) was selected by using the available sampling method. There were 10 persons in both pre-test and post-test groups. The parents' form of the standard Goodman (1997) altruistic questionnaire was used for pre-test and post-test, and parents of the children responded to these questionnaires by observing their behavior in two phases. Parents were tested in both groups. The experimental group was influenced by the story-reading variable for eight sessions held from August to September 2017 in Imam Ali Public Library in Kermanshah. All eight storybooks were related to children's altruistic behavior. At the end of the intervention, the parents of both groups completed the post-test. To determine the effects of storytelling on altruism in Kermanshah boys Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon tests were used.
Findings: Descriptive data showed that the level of altruism of boys aged 7 to 12-year-old is above average and desirable. Furthermore, the findings of statistical tests indicated that storytelling sessions increased the altruism of children. The difference between the pre-test of the control and experimental groups was not significant, but the post-test altruism level of the experimental group increased compared to the control group, which suggests that the storytelling intervention increased altruism in the Kermanshahi boys under study.
Originality/value: For the first time, the present study experimentally showed that storytelling increases the altruistic sense of 7 to 12-year-old boys. This finding demonstrates the applicability of storytelling in educating children and solving their problems and suggests that storytelling should be used in educational and clinical settings as an optimal entertaining teaching method.

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Purpose: Infographics are considered a powerful communication and information medium in human-information interaction as well as in successful transmission of messages. The aim of the present study is to arrive at a model or framework based on the content of infographics published about reading, to discover and identify their content and also to introduce the capabilities and attractiveness of infographics as an interactive medium. It seeks to examine for whom and for what purpose these media are published, what their content is and what effects the reading infographics have on the target audience.
Method: The present study is a qualitative one in which the qualitative content analysis method was used. The study population consists of 30 reading infographics published on the Pinterest website. All infographics were transferred to MAXQDA2020 software and then the content coding of each infographic began. These codes were then analyzed and modeled. Using the visualization package of the above-mentioned software and drawing the word cloud, various theoretical models of the generated codes as well as hierarchical ones were built to form the table of components and categories. Finally, the target audience, content and role of the infographics in promoting reading were identified.
Findings: Various models and frameworks can be built based on the research findings. The first model is the target audience model, in the sense that the audience of these media were primarily parents. Since the aim of these infographics is to promote reading among children, they have targeted parents as their audience. The second model can be drawn according to the content of the infographics. The content of these infographics is very diverse and a variety of models can be built according to it. Reading benefits, reasons to read, boys' reading habits, reading strategies for the children, fast reading strategies, reading levels, reading in the new age, the strategy of reading aloud books to encourage a child to read, ways to encourage reading, benefits of reading for the pleasure, promoting and encouraging reading among children and adolescents, reading benefits for the brain, and the importance of and reasons for reading and reading aloud books were among the most important topics addressed by these infographics. The third model is built on the role and influence of the infographics. The role of these media can be categorized as: informative, directive, notifying, promoting and propagandistic.
Originality/value: The findings indicated that the infographics published in the field of reading are replete with rich and useful information providing guidance to parents in encouraging children to read. Furthermore, the present study was the first to examine the content of infographics as emerging and influential media in Iran and abroad. It focused on the subject of infographics from the perspective of the communication sciences (Harold Lasswell's model). Using the present research approach, one is able to carry out various studies in different fields as well as to analyze infographics with other topics by using the content analysis method and other communication models.

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Purpose: A review of texts in Persian language shows that most of the researches in the field of reading are focused on free or leisure reading and Iranian researchers have not studied academic reading. Perhaps one of the reasons for not conducting research in this field is the lack of appropriate tools. Therefore, this research was conducted in order to check the adequacy of the psychometric properties and validate the reading attitude questionnaire of Isakson et al (2016).
Method: This research is designed with a quantitative approach in order to describe the psychometric characteristics of the attitude towards academic reading questionnaire. The statistical population of this research included the students of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, who were studying in this university in the first half of the academic year of 1401-1400 SH. Using stratified sampling, 890 students were selected as samples. To validate this tool, apparent and content validity indices were measured. Confirmatory factor analysis was also utilized to evaluate the validity of the structure. Multi-value question-answer models were used to analyze the questionnaire items, and Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess the reliability of this questionnaire.
Findings: In the development of the research tool, a structure with three factors was used, whose factors are: academic reading behaviors, self-efficacy in academic reading, and evaluation for academic reading. The appearance validity of the questionnaire items was confirmed, and the content validity test showed a meaningful relationship between items and factors. The confirmatory factor analysis for these three factors showed that this model provides an appropriate structure to measure the attitude to academic reading and there exists a good fit between this proposed model and experimental data. The items of this questionnaire, in addition to having a good fit with the multi-valued answer question models, have the appropriate clean power at different levels of people's attitudes. Examination of the reliability coefficient in this questionnaire showed that both the individual factors and the questionnaire, in general, are at a desirable level of stability and reliability.
Originality/value: There is no suitable tool in the Persian language that can properly assess the attitude towards academic reading. Therefore, a lack of appropriate tool in this area can be seen. This tool can be used in educational research to assess the causes of academic achievement or failure of students, as well as to study their study and learning styles. The most common use of this tool in tests is to measure reading ability at the beginning of reading improvement courses in schools and universities or other reading education intervention programs.

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Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of leaderboard on the reading rate of elementary school students.
Method: The research method is a quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of the present study includes all second-grade students in Karaj schools, from among whom 120 students of one school (80 for the experimental group and 40 for the control group) were selected as a sample using the available sampling method. and were randomly placed in two experimental groups and one control group. The control group received regular training without the intervention of the leaderboard; The first experimental group received training with an individual leaderboard, and the second experimental group received training with a group leaderboard. The research tool includes a researcher-made checklist made whose face validity was checked by the primary school teachers and its reliability was checked by the agreement between the coders using the intra-class reliability coefficient method and it was confirmed by 100%. At the end, the data of this research were analyzed by using one-variable analysis of covariance using SPSS software.
Findings: The findings of the research showed that the difference in the adjusted average of the three groups in the reading rate variable is significant (P<0.01, F=94.85). This finding means that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the average score of the reading rate and after using the leaderboard, the reading rate of the students in the experimental groups has increased compared to the students in the control group. Furthermore, the difference in the mean of the reading rate variable between the two groups under training is not significant (P>0.05). As a result, the effect of two educational interventions, group and individual leaderboard on increasing students’ reading rate is almost at the same level.
Originality/value: The results of this research showed that both group and individual leader board educational interventions have a significant effect on increasing the amount of study of students. A good leaderboard supports competence and autonomy, and the connectedness and satisfaction that comes when you feel understood and loved by the people you care about, and a sense of closeness to the people you play with. In addition, another aspect of leaderboard as a gamification element is the collaborative atmosphere. This feature allows students to work collaboratively through pair or group work because all activities can be solved individually or in groups. In addition, this aspect of leaderboard makes students more involved in the class and participate in the class.

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Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of implementing a reading plan with family and reading cycles on reading motivations and improving study rate of students.
Method: The present study is applied in terms of purpose and is a survey in terms of the type of data collection. The statistical population of this study includes all students who have been educated in the study movement educations in Kerman province from 1395 (SH) to 1400 (SH) and have been covered by the family study plan and the study cycles plan. The statistical population of the study included 3182 people, from whom 342 individuals was determined as the statistical sample based on Cochran’s formula. Multi-stage cluster sampling method was utilized to select the sample. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect research data. The validity of the research tools was confirmed by content method. Cronbach’s alpha test was performed to calculate the reliability of the research tools. The calculated alpha value for this questionnaire was 0/83. To test the main and sub-hypotheses of the research, a t-test was implemented for independent groups.
Findings: Results indicated that there is a significant difference between the reading rate of students who have a reading plan with family and reading cycles. People who have reading plan with family have more reading rate in the fields of extracurricular study, cyberspace study and study of religious books. Therefore, it can be concluded that the trainings and programs that are defined to strengthen literacy, will extremely help in increasing the reading motivation and improving the reading rate, if they are prepared correctly and are based on the principles of education.
Originality/value: The results of the research seek to re-define the role of implementing the family reading plan and reading cycles on reading motivation and reading rate of students. Since the implementation of such plans and similar plans leads to the continuation of literacy and the preservation and strengthening of literacy in the newly literate students, and helps them to use these skills in life and using the wide world of science and knowledge and finally achieve happiness for themselves and the society, the Literacy Movement Organization can implement such plans by considering the results of all studies carried out so far in this field for all learners in all courses in order to prevent them from returning to illiteracy or functional illiteracy.

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Throughout history, one of the most important functions of public libraries has been to be the primary source of fun reading. therefore, the preparation of appropriate storybooks for its clients is one of the main advantages of public libraries. There are many factors that influence the choice of the right storybook for the reader. One of the factors that is important in shaping users' desires and likes is reading traction. Reading Appeals are those factors related to the content of the book and the reader that can be described or understood and can lead to the pleasure of the reader. The purpose of the present study is to analyze the impacts of reading appeals on borrowing to popular fiction books in Tehran's public libraries.

The research method is survey and the data collection tool is a semi-structured questionnaire. The validity of the questionnaire was assessed by consulting with guidance and counseling professors and a number of experts in the field through face validity. Is acceptable. The statistical population of the present study includes 5118 active members of Tehran Public Pirozi Library, which was estimated 357 using Cochran formula. Data were analyzed by SPSS software and descriptive and inferential statistics.
According to the research findings, four variables of story style, story tone, reader curiosity, and reader's mood were the most important criteria for users to select the book and borrowing it to the Public Library. The research hypothesis test showed no significant relationship between gender and personality variables, storyline, style, tone, author's popularity, book title popularity, and friends 'and experts' recommendation, but no relationship between gender and pacing variables, framing, curiosity and present There is a significant relationship between climate. There was also a significant relationship between the age of the users and the contextual variables, author's popularity, popularity of the title of the book, curiosity, friends 'and experts' recommendation, and mood. On the other hand, there is a significant relationship between education level and the variables of characterization, framing, author's popularity, book title popularity, curiosity and mood.
Since public libraries are considered to be the main hub for the provision of reading texts, identifying effective reading trends in borrowing popular fiction books to library users enables managers and policy makers of public libraries. Identify the audience's view of popular books in order to provide their library collections based on their interests and interests.

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