Library
In the traditional sense of the word, a
library is a collection of
books and periodicals. It can refer to an individual's
private collection, but more often it is a large collection that is funded and maintained by a
city or
institution. This collection is often used by people who choose not to â€" or cannot afford to â€" purchase an extensive collection themselves.
However, with the collection or invention of media other than books for storing information, many libraries are now also repositories and access points for
maps,
prints or other
artwork,
microfilm,
microfiche,
audio tapes,
CDs,
LPs,
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.
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.
More recently, libraries are understood as extending beyond the physical walls of a building, providing assistance in navigating and analyzing tremendous amounts of knowledge with a variety of digital tools.
The first libraries were only partly libraries, being composed for the most part of the unpublished records that make up
archives. Archaeological findings from the diggings of the ancient
city-states of
Sumer have revealed temple rooms full of
clay tablets in
cuneiform script. These archives were made up nearly completely of the records of commercial transactions or inventories, with only a few documents touching theological matters or legends. Things were much the same in the government records on
papyrus of
Ancient Egypt.
The earliest rediscovered 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 are short-listed in the late second century in
Deipnosophistae:[Epitome of Book I] "
Polycrates of Samos and
Pisistratus who was tyrant of Athens, and Euclides who was himself also an Athenian
[Not the familiar Euclid.] and Nicorrates of Samos and even the kings of
Pergamos, and
Euripides the poet and
Aristotle the philosopher, and Nelius his librarian; from whom they say our countryman
[The writer was Alexandrian; the sophisticates in Deipnosophistae were at a banquet in Rome.] Ptolemæus, surnamed Philadelphus, bought them all, and transported them, with all those which he had collected at Athens and at Rhodes to his own beautiful Alexandria."
[See Library of Alexandria.] 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.
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 666 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 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 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
Christian monastery libraries beginning at
Montecassino,
Islamic libraries knew a period of great 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, 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
Spanish Inquistors, or removed to European libraries and museums during the colonial period.
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. After but 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 manuscriptswere valuable possessions. Library architecture developed in response to the need for security. Librarians often chained books to
lecterns,
armaria, 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 forbad loaning books, reminding them that lending is "one of the chief works of mercy."
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 cheaper, 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, 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.
Libraries can be divided into categories by several methods:
* by the entity (institution, municipality, or corporate body) that supports or perpetuates it
** school libraries
** private libraries
** corporate libraries
** government libraries
** academic libraries
** historical society libraries
* by the type of documents or materials it holds
** digital libraries
** picture (photograph) libraries
** slide libraries
**
tool libraries* by the subject matter of documents it holds
** architecture libraries
** fine arts libraries
**
law libraries**
medical libraries** military libraries
** theological libraries
* by the users it serves
** 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.
**
School libraries — Most public and private primary and secondary schools have libraries designed to support the curriculum.
**
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. Many public libraries also serve as community organizations that provide free services and events to the public, particularly children.
**
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.
Also, the governments of most major countries support
national libraries. Three noteworthy examples are the U.S.
Library of Congress Canada
Library and Archives Canada and the
British Library.
|
Libraries almost invariably contain long aisles with 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 cataloging 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 such as Youth, Teen, Genealogy or Special Collections.
*
Collection Development orders materials and maintains materials budgets.
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. Library instruction is closely related to the study of
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
ebooks. 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.
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).
In the
United States, among other countries, libraries in financially-strapped communities are in the precarious position of having to compete with other public institutiuons 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. 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.
["Referenda Roundup, 2005" American Library Association, 2005. (Accessed 10 July, 2006). ]The
American Library Association says media reports it has compiled in 2004 showed some $162 million in funding cuts to libraries nationwide.
[ "Library Funding" American Library Association, 2004. (Accessed 10 July, 2006)].
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.
[ "Long Overdue: A Fresh Look at Public Attitudes About Libraries in the 21st Century" Public Agenda, 2006. (Accessed 10 July, 2006).]In various cost-benefit studies libraries continue to provide an exceptional return on the dollar
[Holt, Glen. Measuring Outcomes:Applying Cost-Benefit Analysis to Middle-Sized and Smaller Public Libraries. Library Trends; Winter2003, Vol. 51 Issue 3, p424, 17p] |
Library of Alençon (built c.1800) |
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
British Library in
London,
Bibliothèque nationale de France in
Paris, and the
Library of Congress in
Washington, D.C..
*
Egypt's ancient
Library of Alexandria and modern
Bibliotheca Alexandrina*
Ambrosian Library in
Milan*
Assurbanipal's library at
Nineveh*
Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) in
Paris*
Bodleian Library at
University of Oxford*
British Library in
London*
British Library of Political and Economic Science in
London*
Cambridge University Library at
University of Cambridge*
Carolina Rediviva at
Uppsala University*
Dutch Royal Library in
The Hague*
Fisher Library at the
University of Sydney (largest in the Southern Hemisphere)
*
Free Library of Philadelphia in
Philadelphia*
Garrison Library in
Gibraltar*
Harold B. Lee Library at
Brigham Young University, one of the largest single-building university libraries in the world
*
House of Commons Library,
Westminster,
London.
*
Widener Library at
Harvard University in the city of Cambridge (the largest academic library in the world)
*
Jenkins Law Library in
Philadelphia*
John Rylands Library in
Manchester*
Leiden University Library at
Leiden University in
Leiden*
Library of Congress in
Washington, D.C.*
Library of Sir Thomas Browne*
Mitchell Library in
Glasgow (Europe's largest public reference library)
*
National Library of Australia in
Canberra,
Australia*
New York Public Library in
New York*
Osler Library of the History of Medicine,
McGill University,
Montreal,
Canada*
Persia's ancient
Library of Gondishapur*
Russian National Library in
St Petersburg*
Russian State Library in
Moscow*
Royal Library in
Copenhagen*
Seattle Central Library*
Staatsbibliothek in
Berlin*
State Library of Victoria in
Melbourne*
Vatican Library in
Vatican City |
Library of Congress |
Other libraries:
* 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, "The only library in America with no books".
* 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 that are the subject of a Wikipedia article*
List of libraries*
List of national libraries*
List of university libraries*
Bookend*
Bookcase*
Paper*
Printmaking*
Digital library *
Carnegie library*
Chinese Library Classification (CLC)
*
Controlled vocabulary*
Dewey Decimal Classification*
Digital reference services*
Interlibrary loan*
Librarian*
Library and information science*
Library of Congress Classification*
Library of Congress Subject Headings*
Library 2.0*
Literature*
open access*
Public Library of Science*
Research library*
Slide library*
Tool-lending Libraries*
:Wikisource,
The Free Library*
Access My Library - Online access to your library online. Search for and view millions of articles free*
Libraries : Frequently Asked Questions*
LibLinks - Directory of library resource links organized by US states*
LibWeb - Directory of Library servers via WWW *
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 organising and running a library
*
"The Infinite Library," Technology Review article on the
Google Library Project.
*
American Library Association's list of largest libraries*
Libros en español (spanish,english)
*
"How did public libraries get started?" from
The Straight Dope*
Library Bookcases*
Libraries @ the
Catholic EncyclopediaUK library charities
*
The LIBRI Forum : The Libri Trust*
The UK Library CampaignUK library support campaigns
*
The Libraries for Life for Londoners campaign*
The Love Libraries*
The Good Library Guide*
The Friends of Little Chalfont Library*
David Lammy's Speech to Parliament in the Adjournment Debate on LibrariesUSA library support campaigns
*
The Campaign to Save America's Libraries *
Rally Salinas! *
California Library Association *
The "Yes" for Libraries Campaign 
