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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare the attitude of the managers of libraries located at Iran, Tehran and Shahid Beheshti Medical Sciences Universities' training hospitals, on the status of information technology (IT) in the mentioned libraries. Design/methodology/approach – This study employed a researcher-made questionnaire. The managers of 40 hospital libraries of Iran, Tehran and Shahid Beheshti Universities formed the population of the research. To analyze the collected data, the statistical software SPSS (version 17) was used. Findings – Results showed that 12.5 per cent of Tehran, 15.6 per cent of Iran and 25 per cent of Shahid Beheshti Universities library managers agreed, to a very large extent, on the application and development of IT and its tools and 93.7 per cent of the managers from all three hospital libraries deemed the application of IT most necessary. The managers believed that the greatest advantage of IT is concerned with the reduction of human efforts (59.4 per cent), and 100 per cent of the managers acknowledged the need for further promotion of their skills in a wide variety of IT issues. In total, 16.1 per cent at Tehran, 12.9 per cent at Iran and 29 per cent at Shahid Beheshti University considerably approved of formal education for the promotion of their librarians' skills. Originality/value – This study is a step towards acknowledging the contribution, status, and value of hospital libraries to the health sector by the library managers in theory and practice, in the shadow of considering their librarians as network experts, information media and system designers, and technology experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]