Parinaz Babaei | Iranian librarians and information scientists have actively participated in IFLA-related activities for years. Such activities include, among others, regular participation in annual IFLA conference, membership in specialized committees and working groups, e.g., IFLA Committee on Public Libraries, LIS organizations membership to IFLA, and conducting research and studies on IFLA Standards, Guidelines and Principles regarding libraries.
This paper intends to present such researches related IFLA which have been categorized as 1. Information Organization Standards; and 2. Library Services Standards.
The largest and the most recent researches have been carried out on information organization. Standards have been the most popular research subjects from 2012 onwards. @Attachment 1 provides an inventory of works on library standards. In an article presented at the IFLA Congress 2016 (USA, Columbus), Fatemeh Pazooki provided a report on such activities. Most of these researches were comparative as they tried to compare the current status of different universities based on IFLA standards.
Also, an article has been dedicated to drawing a comparison between IFLA standards and library schools as well as the governing situation in Iran.
A number of books on IFLA Standards, Guidelines and Principles have also been authored or translated reflecting Iranian experts’ serious interest in keeping abreast of IFLA standards. Also, a part of the research on standards (@Attachment 2) has focused on researches conducted in the specific field of information standards. As noted in the Inventory, the largest number of articles was published in 2017. They cover a wide range of topics, including RDA, FRBR, ontologies, image mining, indexing and classification, BibFrame, Semantic web, Theoretical principles of information organization, MARC and UniMARC. Most researches have been dedicated to RDA, FRBR, LRM, PRESSOO, FRAD, FRASAD, BIBFRAME, etc. indexing and linking data. Interestingly, the on-going research works in different fields of information organization point to the growing interest among a large number of Iranian experts. The Inventory indicates that these research activities have been conducted in different forms, such as writing books and articles, and participating in specialized meetings and panels, workshops, conventions and congresses.
Moreover, most of these activities take place in a collaborative format, indicating, among others, the wide range of scientific connections and cooperation among Iranian librarians.
The fact that most articles published during the previous year had been authored by more than two researchers is a clear indication in this regard.
