Presenting a Framework for Supporting Life-long Learning in Iranian public libraries and Its validation

Purpose: Since nowadays public libraries are considered lifelong learning centers, these centers must have the required standards and conditions to support lifelong learning in order that they could help society members to achieve their personal and professional learning more effectively. Accordingly, it is necessary to develop and provide a mechanism to support lifelong learning in public libraries. Due to the lack of practical guidelines for supporting lifelong learning in Iranian public libraries, the present study addresses the existing gap. Method: In the present research, the mixed method was used. To do so, an inductive content analysis was first used to present a framework for supporting lifelong learning in Iran public libraries. The statistical population of this section of research included all related articles indexed in the databases of Proquest, Springer, Science Direct, Emerald, Wiley, Ebsco, Sage, Eric, LISA, and Google Scholar, as well as documents, strategic plans, and websites of public libraries all around the world. At this stage, 71 sources were purposefully selected and analyzed in order to identify the dimensions and components of lifelong learning support through the world public libraries. In the second section of the research, the internet survey research method was used to validate the proposed framework. The statistical population of this section consisted of all specialists in Educational Science/Knowledge and Information Science who had academic or professional experience in the area of lifelong learning.18 individuals of this population were selected purposefully as the sample of the study. A researcher-made evaluation questionnaire was used for data collection. The validity of the evaluation questionnaire was verified by 5 persons who were expert in Educational Sciences/Knowledge and Information Science. Furthermore, the inter-rater consistency was used to measure the reliability of the questionnaire, which yielded the acceptable value of 0.86. Finally, Data were analyzed using the median and sign test. Findings: Using the findings resulting from global experiences and considering the Iranian Public Librarychr('39')s vision, a framework including vision, mission, values, and strategies was presented in order to support lifelong learning in Iranian public libraries. This framework was evaluated by experts, and the results of the evaluation showed that the proposed framework is comprehensive as well as suitable for implementation of lifelong learning in Iranian public libraries. Originality/value: Despite the emphasis of the Iranchr('39')s high-level policy documents on the role of public libraries in lifelong learning, no serious efforts thus far have been made to support lifelong learning in Iranian public libraries. The framework proposed in this research can help Iranian public libraries to play a more effective role in building a lifelong learning community. Furthermore, this framework and the resulting executive actions can change the future of public librarieschr('39') business and services and impact on its current mechanisms and structure.