evaluating the rate of international scientific journal use in the libraries of four educational and research centres

background: reviewing the rate of journal use is a known and conventional way of studying the cost effectiveness of the most expensive sources of the libraries in the educational centres. this process is routinely carried out in the libraries of the developed countries. purpose: to assess the usage rate of the periodical international journals by faculties and others, and their related costs (in $us) in the libraries of four educational and research centres in tehran. methods: in a descriptive cross – sectional study, the rate of international scientific journal use by the faculty members and others was studied. depending upon the rate of journal use in one month, three groups were classified: group 1: with use of 1 journal /month; group 2: with 1-3 journal usage/month; and group 3: with 3 and more journal usage/month. the mean monthly journal use and the related costs of the three groups were measured. results: among the entire journals in the studied libraries, 87 (27.6%) belonged to group 1, 121 journals (38.4%) placed in group 2 and finally 107 journals (34%) were in group 3. cost per use for each journal in masih daneshvari, labbafinezhad, rasool-e-akram and imam hospitals were 10.52, 14.42, 14.84 and 13.35 $us respectively. conclusion: according to our findings, about 2/3 of the journals were used less than three times per month. the same situation exists with little difference in the rest of the medical and non-medical educational centres of the country. to improve the present situation, we can not only exclude those journals which are used less frequently but also encourage the professors to use the journals themselves and to persuade the students to take advantage from the relevant journals during their education. it is also recommended that the journals in group 1 and 2 (less frequently used journals) to be purchased and stored by a national library centre only and journals of group 3 by individual educational centres. regarding the increasing facilities of electronic journal usage, it is recommended to use not only these types of journals, but also to preserve the more frequently used journals, in order to improve the present situation.