(Redirected from Libraries)
A 'library' is a collection of information, sources, resources and services, organized for use, and maintained by a public body, an
institution, or a private individual. In the more traditional sense, it means a collection of
books. This collection and services are used by people who choose not to — or cannot afford to — purchase an extensive collection themselves, who need material no individual can reasonably be expected to have, or who require professional assistance with their research.
However, with the collection of
media other than books for
storing information, many libraries are now also repositories and access points for
maps,
prints or other
documents and
artworks on various storage media such as
microfilm,
microfiche,
audio tapes,
CDs,
LPs,
cassettes,
video tapes and
DVDs, and provide public facilities to access
CD-ROM and subscription databases and the
Internet. Thus, modern libraries are increasingly being redefined as places to get unrestricted access to
information in many formats and from many sources. In addition to providing materials, they also provide the services of specialists who are experts in matters related to finding and organizing information and interpreting information needs, called
librarians.
More recently, libraries are understood as extending beyond the physical walls of a building, by including material accessible by electronic means, and by providing the assistance of
librarians in navigating and analyzing tremendous amounts of knowledge with a variety of digital tools.
The term "library" has itself acquired a secondary meaning: "a collection of useful material for common use," and in this sense is used in fields such as
computer science,
mathematics and
statistics,
electronics and
biology.
History
The first libraries were only partly libraries, being composed for the most part of unpublished
records, which are usually viewed as
archives, not libraries. Archaeological findings from the ancient
city-states of
Sumer have revealed temple rooms full of
clay tablets in
cuneiform script. These archives were made up almost completely of the records of commercial transactions or inventories, with only a few documents touching theological matters, historical records or legends. Things were much the same in the government and temple records on
papyrus of
Ancient Egypt.
The earliest discovered private archives were kept at
Ugarit; besides correspondence and inventories, texts of myths may have been standardized practice-texts for teaching new scribes.
Private or personal libraries made up of
non-fiction and
fiction books (as opposed to the state or institutional records kept in archives) first appeared in
classical Greece. The first ones appeared some time near the
5th century BC. The celebrated book collectors of Hellenistic Antiquity were listed in the late second century in ''
Deipnosophistae:''
[1]
All these libraries were Greek; the cultivated Hellenized diners in ''Deipnosophistae'' pass over the libraries of Rome in silence. At the
Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, apparently the villa of Caesar's father-in-law, the Greek library has been partly preserved in volcanic ash; archaeologists speculate that a Latin library, kept separate from the Greek one, may await discovery at the site.
Libraries were filled with
parchment scrolls as at Pergamum and on
papyrus scrolls as at Alexandria: export of prepared writing materials was a staple of commerce. There were a few institutional or royal libraries like the
Library of Alexandria which were open to an educated public, but on the whole collections were private. In those rare cases where it was possible for a scholar to consult library books there seems to have been no direct access to the stacks. In all recorded cases the books were kept in a relatively small room where the staff went to get them for the readers, who had to consult them in an adjoining hall or covered walkway.
Little is known about early
Chinese libraries, save what is written about the imperial library which began with the
Qin Dynasty. One of the curators of the imperial library in the
Han Dynasty is believed to have been the first to establish a library classification system and the first book notation system. At this time the library catalog was written on scrolls of fine
silk and stored in silk bags. There is also evidence of those libraries at
Nippur of about 1900 B.C. and those at
Nineveh of about 700 B.C. as showing a
library classification system.
[2]
In
Persia many libraries were established by the
Zoroastrian elite and the
Persian Kings. Among the first ones was a royal library in
Isfahan. One of the most important public libraries established around 667 AD in south-western
Iran was the
Library of Gundishapur. It was a part of a bigger scientific complex located at the
Academy of Gundishapur.
In the West, the first public libraries were established under the
Roman Empire as each succeeding emperor strove to open one or many which outshone that of his predecessor. Unlike the Greek libraries, readers had direct access to the scrolls, which were kept on shelves built into the walls of a large room. Reading or copying was normally done in the room itself. The surviving records give only a few instances of lending features. As a rule Roman public libraries were bilingual: they had a Latin room and a Greek room. Most of the large
Roman baths were also cultural centers, built from the start with a library, with the usual two room arrangement for Greek and Latin texts.
In the sixth century, at the very close of the Classical period, the great libraries of the Mediterranean world remained those of Constantinople and Alexandria.
Cassiodorus, minister to Theodoric, established a monastery at Vivarium in the heel of Italy with a library where he attempted to bring Greek learning to Latin readers and preserve texts both sacred and secular for future generations. As its unofficial librarian, Cassiodorus not only collected as many manuscripts as he could, he also wrote treatises aimed at instructing his monks in the proper uses of reading and methods for copying texts accurately. In the end, however, the library at Vivarium was dispersed and lost within a century.
Elsewhere in the
Early Middle Ages, after the
fall of the Western Roman Empire and before the rise of the large Western
Christian monastery libraries beginning at
Montecassino, libraries were found in scattered places in the Christian
Middle East. Upon the rise of
Islam, libraries in newly Islamic lands knew a brief period of expansion in the Middle East,
North Africa,
Sicily and
Spain. Like the Christian libraries, they mostly contained books which were made of
paper, and took a
codex or modern form instead of scrolls; they could be found in mosques, private homes, and universities. Some mosques sponsored
public libraries.
Ibn al-Nadim's bibliography ''Fihrist'' demonstrates the devotion of medieval Muslim scholars to books and reliable sources; it contains a description of thousands of books circulating in the Islamic world circa
1000, including an entire section for books about the doctrines of other religions. Unfortunately, modern Islamic libraries for the most part do not hold these antique books; many were lost,
destroyed by Mongols, or removed to European libraries and museums during the colonial period.
[3]
By the
8th century first Iranians and then Arabs had imported the craft of paper making from China, with a mill already at work in
Baghdad in
794. By the
9th century completely public libraries started to appear in many Islamic cities. They were called "halls of Science" or ''dar al-'ilm''. They were each endowed by Islamic sects with the purpose of representing their tenets as well as promoting the dissemination of secular knowledge. The libraries often employed translators and copyists in large numbers, in order to render into Arabic the bulk of the available Persian, Greek and Roman non-fiction and the classics of literature. This flowering of Islamic learning ceased after a few centuries as the Islamic world began to turn against experimentation and learning. After a few centuries many of these libraries were destroyed by
Mongolian invasion. Others were victim of wars and religious strife in the Islamic world. However, a few examples of these medieval libraries, such as the libraries of
Chinguetti in
West Africa, remain intact and relatively unchanged even today. Another ancient library from this period which is still operational and expanding is the
Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi in the Iranian city of
Mashhad, which has been operating for more than six centuries.
The contents of these Islamic libraries were copied by Christian monks in Muslim/Christian border areas, particularly Spain and Sicily. From there they eventually made their way into other parts of Christian
Europe. These copies joined works that had been preserved directly by Christian monks from Greek and Roman originals, as well as copies Western Christian monks made of
Byzantine works. The resulting conglomerate libraries are the basis of every modern library today.
Medieval library design reflected the fact that these manuscripts--created via the labor-intensive process of hand copying--were valuable possessions. Library architecture developed in response to the need for security. Librarians often chained books to
lecterns,
armaria (wooden chests), or
shelves, in well-lit rooms. Despite this protectiveness, many libraries were willing to lend their books if provided with security deposits (usually money or a book of equal value). Monastic libraries lent and borrowed books from each other frequently and lending policy was often theologically grounded. For example, the Franciscan monasteries loaned books to each other without a security deposit since according to their vow of poverty only the entire order could own property. In 1212 the council of Paris condemned those monasteries that still forbade loaning books, reminding them that lending is "one of the chief works of mercy."
[4]
The earliest example in England of a library to be endowed for the benefit of users who were not members of an institution such as a cathedral or college was the
Francis Trigge Chained Library in
Grantham,
Lincolnshire, established in 1598. The library still exists and can justifiably claim to be the forerunner of later public library systems.
The early libraries located in monastic
cloisters and associated with
scriptoria were collections of lecterns with books chained to them. Shelves built above and between back-to-back lecterns were the beginning of
bookpresses. The chain was attached at the fore-edge of a book rather than to its spine. Book presses came to be arranged in
carrels (perpendicular to the walls and therefore to the windows) in order to maximize lighting, with low bookcases in front of the windows. This ''stall system'' (fixed bookcases perpendicular to exterior walls pierced by closely spaced windows) was characteristic of
English institutional libraries. In
Continental libraries, bookcases were arranged parallel to and against the walls. This ''wall system'' was first introduced on a large scale in Spain's
El Escorial.
As books became more common, the need for chaining them lessened. But as the number of books in libraries increased, so did the need for compact storage and access with adequate lighting, giving birth to the ''stack system'', which involved keeping a library's collection of books in a space separate from the
reading room, an arrangement which arose in the
19th century. Book stacks quickly evolved into a fairly standard form in which the
cast iron and
steel frameworks supporting the bookshelves also supported the floors, which often were built of translucent blocks to permit the passage of light (but were not transparent, for reasons of modesty). With the introduction of
electrical lighting, it had a huge impact on how the library
operated. Also, the use of glass floors was largely discontinued, though floors were still often composed of metal grating to allow air to circulate in multi-story stacks.
Ultimately, even more space was needed, and a method of moving shelves on tracks (compact shelving) was introduced to cut down on otherwise wasted aisle space.
Types of libraries
Libraries can be divided into categories by several methods:
★ by the entity (institution, municipality, or corporate body) that supports or perpetuates them
★
★
school libraries
★
★
public libraries
★
★
private libraries
★
★ corporate libraries
★
★ government libraries
★
★
academic libraries
★
★
historical society libraries
★ by the type of documents or materials they hold
★
★
digital libraries
★
★
data libraries
★
★ picture (photograph) libraries
★
★ slide libraries
★
★
tool libraries
★ by the subject matter of documents they hold
★
★ architecture libraries
★
★ fine arts libraries
★
★
law libraries
★
★
medical libraries
★
★ military libraries
★
★ theological libraries (See:
Theological Libraries and Librarianship)
★ by the users they serve
★
★ military communities
★ by traditional professional divisions:
★
★ '
Academic libraries' — These libraries are located on the campuses of colleges and universities and serve primarily the students and faculty of that and other academic institutions. Some academic libraries, especially those at public institutions, are accessible to of the general public in whole or in part.
★
★ '
School libraries' — Most public and private primary and secondary schools have libraries designed to support the school's curriculum.
★
★ '
Research libraries' — These libraries are intended for supporting scholarly research, and therefore maintain permanent collections and attempt to provide access to all necessary material. Research libraries are most often
academic libraries or
national libraries, but many large
special libraries have research libraries within their special field and a very few of the largest public libraries also serve as research libraries.
★
★ '
Public libraries' or 'public lending libraries' — These libraries provide service to the general public and make at least some of their books available for borrowing, so that readers may use them at home over a period of days or weeks. Typically, libraries issue
library cards to community members wishing to borrow books. Many public libraries also serve as community organizations that provide free services and events to the public, such as babysitting classes and story time.
★
★ 'Special libraries' — All other libraries fall into this category. Many private businesses and public organizations, including hospitals, museums, research laboratories, law firms, and many government departments and agencies, maintain their own libraries for the use of their employees in doing specialized research related to their work. Special libraries may or may not be accessible to some identified part of the general public. Branches of a large academic or research libraries dealing with particular subjects are also usually called "special libraries": they are generally associated with one or more academic departments. Special libraries are distinguished from
special collections, which are branches or parts of a library intended for rare books, manuscripts, and similar material.
[1]
★ The final method of dividing library types is also the simplest. Many institutions make a distinction between 'circulating libraries' (where materials are expected and intended to be loaned to patrons, institutions, or other libraries) and 'collecting libraries' (where the materials are selected on a basis of their natures or subject matter). Many modern libraries are a mixture of both, as they contain a general collection for circulation, and a reference collection which is often more specialized, as well as restricted to the library premises.
Also, the governments of most major countries support
national libraries. Three noteworthy examples are the U.S.
Library of Congress, Canada's
Library and Archives Canada, and the
British Library. A typically broad sample of libraries in one state in the U.S. can be explored at
Every Library In Illinois.
Description
Libraries almost invariably contain long aisles with rows and rows and rows of books.
Libraries have materials arranged in a specified order according to a
library classification system, so that items may be located quickly and collections may be browsed efficiently. Some libraries have additional galleries beyond the public ones, where reference materials are stored. These reference stacks may be open to selected members of the public. Others require patrons to submit a "stack request," which is a request for an assistant to retrieve the material from the closed stacks.
Larger libraries are often broken down into departments staffed by both paraprofessionals and professional
librarians.
★ 'Circulation' handles user accounts and the loaning/returning and shelving of materials.
★ 'Technical Services' works behind the scenes cataloguing and processing new materials and deaccessioning weeded materials.
★ 'Reference' staffs a
reference desk answering user questions (using structured
reference interviews), instructing users, and developing library programming. Reference may be further broken down by user groups or materials; common collections are
children's literature,
young adult literature, and
genealogy materials.
★ 'Collection Development' orders materials and maintains materials budgets.
Library use
Many potential library patrons nevertheless do not know how to use a library effectively. This can be due to lack of early exposure, shyness, or anxiety and fear of displaying ignorance. These problems drove the emergence of the
library instruction movement, which advocates library user education. Library instruction has been practiced in the U.S. since the 19th century. One of the early leaders was
John Cotton Dana. The basic form of library instruction is generally known as
information literacy.
Libraries inform the public of what materials are available in their collections and how to access that information. Before the computer age, this was accomplished by the card
catalog — a cabinet containing many drawers filled with
index cards that identified books and other materials. In a large library, the card catalog often filled a large room. The emergence of the
Internet, however, has led to the adoption of electronic catalog databases (often referred to as "webcats" or as
OPACs, for "online public access catalog"), which allow users to search the library's holdings from any location with Internet access. This style of catalog maintenance is compatible with new types of libraries, such as
digital libraries and
distributed libraries, as well as older libraries that have been retrofitted. Electronic catalog databases are disfavored by some who believe that the old card catalog system was both easier to navigate and allowed retention of information, by writing directly on the cards, that is lost in the electronic systems. This argument is analogous to the debate over paper books and
e-books. While they have been accused of precipitously throwing out valuable information in card catalogs, most modern libraries have nonetheless made the movement to electronic catalog databases.
Finland has the highest number of registered book borrowers per capita in the world. Over half of Finland's population are registered borrowers.
[2]
Library management
Basic tasks in
library management include the planning of acquisitions (which materials the library should acquire, by purchase or otherwise),
library classification of acquired materials, preservation of materials (especially rare and fragile archival materials such as manuscripts), the deaccessioning of materials, patron borrowing of materials, and developing and administering library computer systems. More long-term issues include the planning of the construction of new libraries or extensions to existing ones, and the development and implementation of outreach services and reading-enhancement services (such as adult literacy and children's programming).
Funding problems
In the
United States, among other countries, libraries in financially-strapped communities compete with other public institutions such as
police,
firefighters,
schools, and
health care.
Many communities are closing down or reducing the capability of their library systems, at the same time balancing their budgets. Jackson County, Oregon (US), closed its entire 15-branch library system on April 6, 2007, for an indefinite period. This example of a funding problem followed the failure to pass of a
bond measure and cessation of federal funding for counties with dwindling timber revenue, in a state with no
sales tax[3][4]. In
December 2004,
Salinas, California almost became the first city in the United States to completely close down its entire library system. A tax increase passed by the voters in November 2005 allowed the libraries to open, but hours remain limited.
[5]The
American Library Association says media reports it has compiled in 2004 showed some $162 million in funding cuts to libraries nationwide.
[6].
Survey data suggests the public values free public libraries. A
Public Agenda survey in 2006 reported 84 percent of the public said maintaining free library services should be a top priority for their local library. But the survey also found the public was mostly unaware of financial difficulties facing their libraries. The survey did not ask those surveyed whether they valued free library services more than other specific services, such as firefighting.
[7]
In various cost-benefit studies libraries continue to provide an exceptional return on the dollar.
[8]
Library of Alençon (built c. 1800)
Famous libraries
Some of the greatest libraries in the world are research libraries. The most famous ones include The Humanities and Social Sciences Library of the
New York Public Library in
New York City, the
Russian National Library in
St Petersburg, the
British Library in
London,
Bibliothèque nationale de France in
Paris, and the
Library of Congress in
Washington, D.C..
★
Assurbanipal's library at
Nineveh, founded between
669-
631 BC.
★
Egypt's
Library of Alexandria (founded in
3rd century BC) and modern
Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
★
Baghdad's
House of Wisdom, founded in
8th century AD.
★
Islamic Spain's library of
Cordoba, founded in
9th century.
★
Egypt's library of
Cairo, founded in
10th century.
★
Tripoli's ''Dar il-'ilm'', destroyed in
1109.
★
Ambrosian Library in
Milan opened to the public,
December 8,
1609.
★
Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) in
Paris,
1720.
★
Boston Public Library in
Boston,
1826.
★
Bodleian Library at
University of Oxford 1602, books collection begin around
1252.
★
British Library in
London created in
1973 by the ''British Library Act'' of 1972 (Originally part of the
British Museum founded 1753).
★
British Library of Political and Economic Science in
London,
1896.
★
Butler Library at
Columbia University,
1934
★
Cambridge University Library at
University of Cambridge, 1931.
★
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in
Pittsburgh,
1895.
★
Carolina Rediviva at
Uppsala University,
1841
★
Dutch Royal Library in
The Hague, 1798
★
The European Library, 2004
★
Firestone Library at
Princeton University, 1948
★
Fisher Library at the
University of Sydney (largest in the
Southern Hemisphere), 1908
★ Franklin Public Library in
Franklin, Massachusetts (the first public library in the U.S.; original books donated by Benjamin Franklin in
1731)
★
Free Library of Philadelphia in
Philadelphia established
February 18,
1891.
★
Garrison Library in
Gibraltar,
1793.
★
Harold B. Lee Library at
Brigham Young University,
1924, probably the largest single-building university library in the world.
★
House of Commons Library,
Westminster,
London. Established 1818.
★
Jenkins Law Library in
Philadelphia founded
1802.
★
Jewish National and University Library in
Jerusalem,
Israel, 1892.
★
John Rylands Library in
Manchester 1972.
★
Leiden University Library at
Leiden University in
Leiden began at 1575 with confiscated monastery books. Officially open in October 31, 1587.
★
Library of Congress in
Washington, D.C. 1800.
★
Library of Sir Thomas Browne, 1711
★
Mitchell Library in
Glasgow (Europe's largest public reference library)
★
National Library of Belarus in
Minsk, 2006.
★
National Library of Australia in
Canberra,
Australia
★
National Library of Iran, 1937.
★
National Library of Ireland in
Dublin, 1877.
★
National Library of Scotland in
Edinburgh, 1925.
★
National Library of Wales in
Aberystwyth, 1907.
★
New York Public Library in
New York
★
Osler Library of the History of Medicine,
McGill University,
Montreal,
Canada
★
Powell Library at
UCLA, part of the
UCLA Library.
★
Royal Library in
Copenhagen, 1793.
★
Russian State Library in
Moscow, 1862.
★
Sassanid's ancient
Library of Gondishapur around
489.
★
Seattle Central Library
★
Staatsbibliothek in
Berlin
★
State Library of New South Wales in
Sydney
★
State Library of Victoria in
Melbourne
★
Sterling Memorial Library at
Yale University, 1931.
★
Vatican Library in
Vatican City,
1448 (but existed before).
★
Widener Library at
Harvard University (
Harvard University Library including all branches has the largest academic collection overall.)
★ The St. Phillips Church Parsonage Provincial Library, established in
1698 in Charleston, South Carolina, was the first public lending library in the American Colonies. ''See also''
Benjamin Franklin's free
public library in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
★
Boston Public Library, an early public lending library in America, was established in
1848.
★
Haskell Free Library and Opera House, which straddles the Canada-US border.
★ St. Marys Church, Reigate, Surrey houses the first public lending library in England. Opened
14 March 1701.
Some libraries devoted to a single subject:
★
Chess libraries
★
Esperanto libraries
★
Family History Library in
Salt Lake City, Utah, the world's largest genealogy library.
For more extensive lists, see
★
★
List of libraries
★
List of national libraries
See also
References
1. Epitome of Book I
2. The American International Encyclopedia, J.J. Little & Ives, New York 1954, Volume IX
3. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, John L. Esposito (ed.), , , Oxford University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-19-506613-8
4. Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages, Geo. Haven Putnam, , , Hillary, 1962,
5. "Referenda Roundup, 2005" American Library Association, 2005. (Accessed 10 July, 2006).
6. "Library Funding" American Library Association, 2004. (Accessed 10 July, 2006)
7. "Long Overdue: A Fresh Look at Public Attitudes About Libraries in the 21st Century" Public Agenda, 2006. (Accessed 10 July, 2006).
8. Holt, Glen. Measuring Outcomes:Applying Cost-Benefit Analysis to Middle-Sized and Smaller Public Libraries. Library Trends; Winter2003, Vol. 51 Issue 3, p424, 17p
External links
Directories of libraries
★
UNESCO Libraries Portal - Over 14000 links worldwide
★
LibLinks - Directory of library resource links organized by US states
★
LibWeb - Directory of library servers via WWW
★
LibWebCats - Another directory of worldwide libraries
★
Libraries of the World and their Catalogues compiled by a retired librarian
★
American Library Association's list of largest libraries
★
National libraries of Europe The European Library
★
Library History Database of the British Isles
Other resources
★
Centre for the History of the Book
★ , ''The Free Library''
★
Libraries : Frequently Asked Questions
★
Private Libraries in Ancient Rome
★
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
★
Professional Library Associations from Jenkins Law Library
★
A Library Primer, by John Cotton Dana, 1903, setting out the basics of organizing and running a library
★
eLibrary - Open Ebooks Directory free for addition of one's own e-books
★
"The Infinite Library," Technology Review article on the
Google Library Project.
★
"How did public libraries get started?" from ''
The Straight Dope''
★
Libraries @ the
Catholic Encyclopedia
★
Librariansworld.com @ the
Librarians Networking Site
★
"The Deserted Library: As Students Work Online, Reading Rooms Empty Out -- Leading Some Campuses to Add Starbucks from ''
The Chronicle of Higher Education''
★
"Thoughtful Design Keeps New Libraries Relevant" from ''
The Chronicle of Higher Education''
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