Does Knowledge sharing Empower Librarians?

Objectives: the objective of the present study was to determine the relationship between knowledge sharing and empowerment of the librarians in two large universities in Iran (the library of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad and that of the Islamic Azad University of Mashhad).Method: this study is a descriptive-analytic survey. Questionnaires were used as the data collection instruments. The population included ۵۵ librarians working at the library of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad and that of the Islamic Azad University of Mashhad.Findings: generally, the average rate of knowledge sharing in the library of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad and that of the Islamic Azad University of Mashhad is ۴۲.۳ and is considered as a middle level. Moreover, among the dimensions of empowerment, the effectiveness dimension had the highest score with an average of ۳.۸ and the meaningfulness dimension had the lowest score with an average of ۲.۱۳. The means obtained in the other dimensions showed that their empowerment values are in the middle to high level (between ۲.۱۳ and ۳.۲۲). The investigation of the dimensions of the librarians’ empowerment indicated that the effectiveness dimension had the highest effect (first rank) with the value ۳.۸; furthermore, the meaningfulness dimension had the lowest effect (fifth rank) with the value ۲.۱۳

Keywords:

empowerment , knowledge sharing , librarians , university libraries , Ferdowsi University of Mashhad , Islamic Azad University of Mashhad