Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Department of Information Science, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Shahid Chamran University, Ahvaz, Iran

2 chamran university of ahvaz

3 Graduate of Master, Department of Information Science, Qom University, Iran.

Abstract

Objectives:The present study seeks to cluster different types of digital resources including manuscripts,hot metal and lithography and other unique resources of library in various subjects based on the topics searched by users to facilitate the acquisition and collection development and improve the service quality of digital libraries.

Methodology:present study is a cross-sectional analytical study which has been carried out in the10-year period of launching Ayatollah Boroujerdi digital library in Qom from 2011 to 2021.The statistical population includes 10-year data related to digital library extracted in July2010 from NOSA digital resources archive software.The library databases were in SQL format,and extracted data were changed to CSV format.Out of various data mining techniques,the association-rule (ARM)(Apriori algorithm) was used to determine the interdependency of information resources searched by users in different subject areas.In data mining process,after data extraction,they were prepared and cleaned.For clustering and association rule mining, IBM Modeler18has been used and for drawing the network graphs,data has been transformed to matrix and bibliometrix library was used in R software.

Findings:Based on the users’ use of various topics in digital library databases,two clusters were extracted such that Cluster1 covered 56%and Cluster2 covered 44%of data.In the first cluster,the subjects such as jurisprudence, principles,prayer,literature, medicine,mysticism,history,ethics and sciences are more frequently used.In the second cluster,subjects of theology,Hadith,syntax,philosophy,logic,poetry,astronomy, prayers,interpretation and miscellaneous subjects are mostly used.The other finding is that the highest rate of simultaneous searches by users relates to the subject of jurisprudence with the topics of logic,ethics,and medicine.In addition,when a user first searches the subject of jurisprudence,s/he has searched the subject of medicine by probability of 55%.

Discussion:This study provides a good opportunity for the managers and administrators to coordinate effective planning and strategic decisions with the real needs of users by identifying and recognizing the user community.In this way,they could provide the ground for making maximum benefit from the unique information resources of this library at national and international levels.Therefore,the research findings highlight the need for more attention of library managers to acquisition and efforts to digitize most resources related to these subject areas. In addition,they could be useful in providing suggestion systems in the library.

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