مطالعه وندالیسم در کتابخانه‌‌های عمومی کشور با تاکید بر ویژگی‌‌های جامعه محلی

Purpose: This research aims to investigate characteristics of vandalism in Iran public libraries with an emphasis on local community features such as level of wealth, crime and cultural proximity and their relations. Methodology: A descriptive-analytical survey method was used for the research. The data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire. Validity and reliability of the tool were appoaved methodologically. The research population was included all the 2225 public libraries of Iran Public Libraries Foundation in the year 2015. Using cluster random sampling, 248 public library were selected from 13 province in Iran. The collected data was analysed by means of descriptive and inferential statistics (one-sample t-test and Spearman correlation test). Findings: Results indicated that the highest scale of vandalism was related to writing  and carving on the library furnitures and equipments (99.2 percent), interior walls (91.5 percent), external walls (85.1 percent). The least scale of vandalism was related to theft of library materials and breaking library glases and lamps (0.4 percent). Besides, output of inferrential statistics were confirmed the correlation between level of wealth and crime of users with library vandalism and weren’t confirmed correlation between cultural proximity and the number of library members with library vandalism. The results also indicated that there was significant differences between the measure and scale of internal and external vandalism in a way that the internal vandalism is more greater than external one. OriginalityValue: We attemted to find the prevalent features of vandalism in public libraries of Iran and correlation of vandalism with some social features. Public libraries should conduct some tactics against writing and curving on furnitures while some aspects of vandalism is related to local economical conditions.