Information Seeking Behavior in Blind People of Iran : a Survey based on Various Experiences faced by them

Abstract

Access to information and its dissemination for the planning of health and social care is essential. While information is not always available as per the needs of the blind people, thus the public libraries and information centers led for meeting the information needs culture and proper knowledge. The study was based on a Descriptive analytic method in which we included 384 blind people of both the sex selected by the multi-clustering method from 10 provinces of Iran. Health information of the subjects was collect through a researcher-based questionnaire. Results showed that religion, occupations, and access to healthy living, were the first toppriority of blind people for meeting information needs in three cultural; social in addition, health forms. The blind people try to look for information on a daily basis and seeking up-to-date technologies. They are most used to audio media rather than any other media to access, utilise information, and rarely used new technologies. Unlike normal people, blind people have high expectations from the library. An attempt has also been taken to present a new model.