DELNET LIBRARY

DELNET was started at the India International Centre Library in January 1988 and was registered as a society in 1992. It was initially supported by the National Information System for Science and Technology (NISSAT), Department of Scientific and Industrial Reseach, Government of India. It was subsequently supported by the National Informatics Centre, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India and The Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

DELNET has been established with the prime objective of promoting resource sharing among the libraries through the development of a network of libraries. It aims to collect, store, and disseminate information besides offering computerised services to users, to coordinate efforts for suitable collection development and also to reduce unnecessary duplication wherever possible.

Overdue Library Books

Overdue Library Books Can Hurt Your Credit Score!

As municipal governments increase efforts to collect unpaid parking tickets, dog-catcher fines, library fines and the like, some consumers are seeing a surprising impact—a radical drop in their credit scores.

To each individual consumer, the fines in question may be very small and collection actions may seem petty and unnecessary. For many cities, however, these unpaid fines and fees add up to millions of dollars a year. Those dollars can be collected with little investment by the cities if they’re turned over to private collection agencies.

Private agencies typically charge a percentage of the balance actually collected, so there’s no risk to the government. The risk to consumers who don’t make those payments in a timely manner, however, is significant. That’s because collection agencies report delinquencies to the three major credit reporting agencies. A single collection item can drop your credit score as much as 100 points. Many consumers don’t know that charges like this can affect their credit.

While not all municipalities use private collection firms, the trend is increasing across the country. As government collection activity rises, so does the number of consumers surprised to discover that they’re paying higher interest rates—or being turned down altogether—because the kids lost a library book or they neglected to renew Rover’s license.

If such charges are already appearing on your credit report, you may be able to negotiate their removal in exchange for payment. Getting items removed from your credit report can be a long and stressful process, though, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll be successful. The best defense is to be aware of the risks and make sure you pay those parking tickets on time.

Eight Beautiful Buildings Win Awards

Eight Beautiful Buildings Win 2005 Library Awards
	Every other year, representatives from the AIA and the American Library Association gather to celebrate the finest examples of library design by architects licensed in the U.S. The 2005 AIA/ALA Library Building Awards honor eight disparate projects, ranging in size from an architecture school library to the central facility for a major city. All share successful resolution of their patrons’ needs into harmonious and beautiful designs. Arcadia University Landman Library, Glenside, Pa., by R.M. Kliment & Frances Halsband Architects, for Arcadia University This design, in response to a competition for an addition to a university library, placed a new wing at the south face of the existing library. The resulting new, curved limestone building forms a distinctive presence at the heart of the campus and accommodates 150,000 volumes; a multimedia collection; the college’s archives; study seating for 300 in reading rooms, carrels, and groups rooms; multimedia classrooms; and the trustees room. The library strives to provide a variety of spaces and places for reading and study, with controlled daylighting and campus views, including a two-story-high reading room on the second floor that extends the full width of the building and looks out over the campus green. The circulating collection, housed on three floors in the older portion of the building, is adjacent to the study areas and a small café. Photo © Cervin Robinson. Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture Library—The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, by Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects with associate architect Wandel and Schnell Architects, for the Ohio State University Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture When considering this library as part of the program for their school of architecture, the faculty wanted to create an information and knowledge resource that also could serve as a reflective space away from the work environment of the design studios. This two-story glass-box, book-lined “room” accommodates 30,000 volumes and seating for 70 people in 40 table seats and 30 lounge chairs—each designed by a famous architect or designer. The library has an ample circulation desk with a closed reserve area, staff offices, workroom and storeroom, copy room, reference and journal areas, digital library, and rare book room. With “reading rooms” at either end—and library services in the middle—the staff interacts easily with the users and maintains control of the space. Located at the end of the building’s circulation system, overlooking a roof garden, the library is both very visible and removed from the major action of the building. As a small indication of the library’s success, it drew more than 20,000 visitors in its first three months of operation while serving a population of 750. Photo © Timothy Hursley. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Brookline, by Loysen + Kreuthmeier Architects, for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh The architects were charged with turning a nondescript, two-story concrete block with a zero lot line into a dynamic storefront library. The program called for doubling the library’s space, which included expanding the children’s department and adding an internet café, popular library, and “self-help” stations. Daylighting the windowless building proved the greatest design challenge, the architects say. A new interior lining peels away from the rigid concrete shell and, with the addition of a light wall, allows natural light from skylights and clerestories to penetrate the spaces. To transform the low-ceiling basement into a delightful children’s library, plaster ceilings tilt fancifully to fit HVAC equipment. Although the library has doubled in size, the new building, which has applied for LEED™ certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, has a zero increase in energy consumption over the old building. Photo courtesy of the architect. The Georgia Archives, Morrow, Ga., by Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, for the Development Authority of Clayton County A highly specialized government entity, quartered in 17 stories of a dark, monolithic building in Atlanta, asked the architects to create a new building that would redefine the visibility of their mission to the public. The architect’s first major intention was to design around how the organization works. On a separate but parallel track, the second major intention centered on designing for how visitors are received and screened for security purposes and how they may enjoy the education, research, and cultural opportunities presented. Operations and public access are designed to be separate, meeting only at specific, secure points. To supplement this technically rigorous program, the architects sited the building to preserve existing stands of trees and the site’s natural contours. Additionally important is the building’s pervasive natural light, tempered with high-performance glass to eliminate UV penetration, sunscreens, and porches. Photo courtesy of the architect. Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library Renovation, Cambridge, Mass., by Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture & Engineering PC, for Harvard University This 1915 library, designed by Horace Trumbauer, sits at the geographical and intellectual heart of the university. In renewing the building for the 21st century, the project called for a renovation that would “simultaneously redefine the academic research library in programmatic and technical terms without losing the aura, comfort, and connection to tradition.” The first phase of the project entailed upgrading and modernizing the building system infrastructure and the original 10-floor self-supporting stack structure and library support spaces. New systems were threaded through the stacks, and the architects “found” space within two large light wells for new mechanical space, staff work areas, and two skylighted reading rooms. The second phase involved restoration of the historic public and reading spaces, in which existing features and room finishes were preserved whenever possible. Issaquah Public Library, Issaquah, Wash., by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, for the King County Library System This new 15,000-square-foot library offers its hometown an expansion and modernization of library services in a more prominent and centralized location in the historic downtown core. The cedar-sided structure used an exaggerated building height to meet both the library’s programming needs of one level and the city code’s call for multifamily urban structures. A trellis and canopies help maintain human scale at the street level. On the corner of the site is a large covered area, or agora, that serves as a sheltered gathering place and marks the entrance to the building. Activity in the library’s multipurpose room, adjacent to the agora, is visible to the street. Doors open to the outside for special events. Entering the building from the agora, one passes through a wood-lined lobby and under a pair of tilted columns into the main space. Additional round columns taper slightly as they rise to meet the wood-lined ceiling. Light filters in the clerestory windows to highlight a delicate metal truss at the spine of the building. Photo © Fred Housel. Salt Lake City Public Library, Salt Lake City, by VCBO Architecture LLC, with design architect Moshe Safdie and Associates, for the Salt Lake City Public Library This 200,000-square-foot facility is part of an ambitious program by the library to double its space for collections, establish a landmark in the city’s civic core, and create a lively interactive public space currently missing in the downtown area. The new library features a triangular main building, adjacent rectangular administration building, glass-enclosed “urban room,” and public piazza. Its reading galleries, which replace the traditional formal reading room, accommodate the “community of readers” in intimate spaces that are private yet visually connected to magnificent exterior views. The library’s sloped and curving wall has become an icon for the city, and the shops and food establishments at its base weave the site together. The wall also defines a connection to the city’s former library, which will become an arts and science center. The library’s roof garden offers spectacular views of the city and surrounding mountains. The library also is a 2004 national AIA Honor Award for Architecture recipient. Photo © Timothy Hursley. Seattle Central Library, Seattle, by a joint venture of OMA/LMN (Office for Metropolitan Architecture and LMN Architects), for the Seattle Public Library The design goal for this library was to redefine the library as an institution no longer exclusively dedicated to the book, but as an information story in which all forms of media—new and old—are presented equally and legibly. Unlike traditional libraries, Seattle Central Library is organized into spatial compartments that are dedicated to and equipped for specific duties. Each platform is a programmatic cluster that is architecturally defined and equipped for maximum performance. The spaces between the platforms function as trading floors where librarians inform and stimulate. The library’s unique “book spiral” addresses the ongoing problem of subject classification. For example, in 1920 the library had no classification for computer science, but by the early 1990s the section had exploded. Using the Dewey Decimal System, the architects arranged the collection in a continuous ribbon—running from “000” to “999”—the subjects form a coexistence that approaches the organic. Each evolves relative to the others, occupying more or less space on the ribbon, but never forcing a rupture. The library also garnered a 2005 national AIA Honor Award for Architecture.

Community Care Mobile Library

The Community Care Mobile Library is a specially adapted vehicle providing services to older people and disabled people across Shropshire. The vehicle has a low side step as well as a ramp at the back. The mobile library visits 120 locations including care homes, day centres, sheltered accommodation and some housebound people on a five week cycle.

You will find large print books, talking books on tape and CD, music on CD, videos and DVDs as well as ordinary print books to choose from. If you cannot find what you want on the shelves, tell the staff and your choice will be brought on the next visit. If you are unable to visit the van in person, collections of books can be left at care homes and community rooms, or you can request a special collection to suit your personal taste.

Shropshire Library Service aims to provide an inclusive, responsive and accessible library and information service meeting the needs and demands of Shropshire’s communities, residents and visitors. For more information on the services available to the elderly and disabled please follow the link to Library accessibility on this page.

Types of library jobs

Just as not everyone who works in a hospital is a doctor, not everyone who works in a library is a librarian! There are a wide varieties of jobs to be done, and all are important. Whether it's putting the books on the shelves, paying bills, answering questions, hiring staff, or preparing a storytime, they all must be done to keep the library running.

Job titles and descriptions vary from library to library, but there are some similarities. Look through the samples below to gain a better understanding of what type of job might be right for you:

• Pages are usually responsible for putting returned books and other items in their proper places on the shelves. They are also responsible for keeping items in the right order. Some handle requests for retrieving materials that are in secured areas, and others may be responsible for checking items back in. Page jobs are usually part-time, with pay of roughly $5.15 to $8 per hour.

• Library Assistants or Technicians generally perform clerical duties, and are often mistaken for librarians as they are the first face people see, since most libraries' checkout desks are near the entrance. Library assistants often check materials out and in, collect fines and fees, answer general phone questions, issue library cards, process new library materials, and assist with items on reserve. Library assistant jobs may be part- or full-time and can range from $8 to $15 per hour.

• Librarians help people with homework and research questions, decide what items to purchase and to discard, offer programs and training, help people use the internet, build websites, and more. Specialized librarians may run computer systems, work with seniors and non-English speaking populations, become specialists in a specific subject area, or maintain the records for the online catalog. Librarian jobs are often full-time, although most libraries also rely on a core of part-time and "substitute" librarians to help cover all of the hours many libraries are open. The average starting salary for a full-time new librarian was $37,975 in 2003, with the average for all librarians at $43,090 for 2002.
  
• Library Managers such as department heads, branch managers, and assistant/deputy/associate directors, and are typically middle managers responsible for the operation of departments or other functional areas such as "all library branches." As managers they may be responsible for work schedules, employee evaluations, training, and managing budgets. Branch managers, in particular, can have additional director-like responsibilities, such as overseeing the condition of the facility or involvement in local neighborhood groups and projects.

• Library Directors have the main leadership role in the library. Typical duties include preparing and overseeing the budget, developing employment and service policies, strategic planning, public and governmental relations, reporting to the governing board or official, ensuring compliance with laws, fundraising, hiring, motivating and firing staff, and more. Directors' duties and compensation can vary greatly depending on the size of the library. The director of a small rural library can literally be the only regularly scheduled employee with a salary of $20,000 to the director of a large urban library with hundreds of employees and a salary of $175,000.

• Other Professionals can play major roles in libraries. These may include jobs such as public relations, accounting and human resources, network administration, facilities management, transportation services and security. Rates of pay vary widely depending on the size of library, geographic area and skills and educational requirements.

Crime Library

The Crime Library is a website documenting major crimes, criminals, and trials, forensics, and criminal profiling from books, police reports, crime television shows, and writers. It is owned and operated by truTV, a cable network which is part of Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting System.

Many of its articles are about recent crimes in the United States but the site also contains information about historically notorious characters of various countries, particularly the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia dating back to the 1400s. Focuses of the site include serial killers, gangsters, celebrity crimes, cults, spies, and terrorists.

The Crime Library was founded by Marilyn J. Bardsley in January 1998. Court TV, forerunner of truTV, purchased the Crime Library in September 2000, the same year now sister website The Smoking Gun was acquired by Court TV. It is currently hosted on truTV's Web site.

School library

A school library is a library attached to and managed by a school to serve the students, staff, and often, parents of a public (state) or private (fee paying) school. School libraries are similar to public libraries in that they contain books, films, recorded sound, periodicals, and other media. These items are not only for the enjoyment and entertainment of the patrons, but to enhance and expand the school's curriculum. In addition, in school libraries, students may receive explicit instruction on library and research skills.

In larger schools, school libraries may be staffed by librarians or teacher-librarians who may hold a specific library science degree. In some jurisdictions, school librarians may be required to have specific certification and/or a teaching certificate.

The librarian is in charge of the school library. School librarians collaborate with classroom teachers to assist students with research and advance the students' information literacy and technology skills. They also perform duties similar to other librarians such as purchasing library materials and maintaining the library collection. They handle the circulating and cataloging of materials, facilitate interlibrary loans, etc. Librarians are often responsible for audio-visual equipment and are sometimes in charge of school computers and computer networks.

in schools which employ them, teacher-librarians may read to children, assist them in selecting books, develop information literacy, and assist with schoolwork. Some school librarians see classes on a "flexible schedule". A flexible schedule means that rather than having students come to the library for instruction at a fixed time every week, the classroom teacher schedules library time when library skills or materials are needed as part of the classroom learning experience. Teacher-librarians assist students with research, collaborating with teachers to create independent learners.

The school library also serves as a place for students to do independent work, use computers, equipment and research materials, to host special events such as author visits and book clubs, and for tutoring and standardized testing in addition to classroom visits with collaborating teachers.

Academic repositories

Many academic libraries are actively involved in building institutional repositories of the institution's books, papers, theses, and other works which can be digitized or were 'born digital'. Many of these repositories are made available to the general public with few restrictions, in accordance with the goals of open access. Institutional, truly free, and corporate repositories are often referred to as digital libraries.


Digital archives

Archives differ from libraries in several ways. Traditionally, archives were defined as:

1. Containing primary sources of information (typically letters and papers directly produced by an individual or organization) rather than the secondary sources found in a library (books, etc);
2. Having their contents organized in groups rather than individual items. Whereas books in a library are cataloged individually, items in an archive are typically grouped by provenance (the individual or organization who created them) and original order (the order in which the materials were kept by the creator);
3. Having unique contents. Whereas a book may be found at many different libraries, depending on its rarity, the records in an archive are usually one-of-a-kind, and cannot be found or consulted at any other location except at the archive that holds them.

The technology used to create digital libraries has been even more revolutionary for archives since it breaks down the second and third of these general rules. The use of search engines, Optical Character Recognition and metadata allow digital copies of individual items (i.e. letters) to be cataloged, and the ability to remotely access digital copies has removed the necessity of physically going to a particular archive to find a particular set of records. The Oxford Text Archive is generally considered to be the oldest digital archive of academic primary source materials.

Project Gutenberg, Google Book Search, Windows Live Search Books, Internet Archive, Cornell University, The Library of Congress World Digital Library, The Digital Library at the University of Michigan, and CMU's Universal library are considered leaders in the field of digital archive creation and management. There are hundreds of regionals such as the Wisconsin Historical Society. The Vatican maintains an extensive digital library inventory and associated technology. The Packard Foundation maintains digitization facilities near the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, as examples.

Digital library

A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats (as opposed to print, microform, or other media) and accessible by computers.[1] The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks. A digital library is a type of information retrieval system.

The first use of the term digital library in print may have been in a 1988 report to the Corporation for National Research Initiatives[2] The term digital libraries was first popularized by the NSF/DARPA/NASA Digital Libraries Initiative in 1994.[3] The older names electronic library or virtual library are also occasionally used, though electronic library nowadays more often refers to portals, often provided by government agencies, as in the case of the Florida Electronic Library.

Types of digital libraries

The term digital library is diffuse enough to be applied to a wide range of collections and organizations, but, to be considered a digital library, an online collection of information must be managed by and made accessible to a community of users. Thus, some web sites can be considered digital libraries, but far from all. Many of the best known digital libraries are older than the web including Project Perseus, Project Gutenberg, and ibiblio. Nevertheless, as a result of the development of the internet and its search potential, digital libraries such as the European Library and the Library of Congress are now developing in a Web-based environment. Public, school and college libraries are also able to develop digital download websites, featuring eBooks, audiobooks, music and video, through companies like OverDrive, Inc.

A distinction is often made between content that was created in a digital format, known as born-digital, and information that has been converted from a physical medium, e.g., paper, by digitizing. The term hybrid library is sometimes used for libraries that have both physical collections and digital collections. They consist of a combination of traditional preservation efforts such as microfilming and new technologies involving digital projects. For example, American Memory is a digital library within the Library of Congress. Some important digital libraries also serve as long term archives, for example, the ePrint arXiv, and the Internet Archive.

Standardization

ISO has published several standards regarding the management of libraries. The following is the list of, but not limited to, some of them.

* ISO 2789:2006 Information and documentation -- International library statistics
* ISO 11620:1998 Information and documentation -- Library performance indicators
* ISO 11799:2003 Information and documentation -- Document storage requirements for archive and library materials
* ISO 14416:2003 Information and documentation -- Requirements for binding of books, periodicals, serials and other paper documents for archive and library use -- Methods and materials
* ISO/TR 20983:2003 Information and documentation -- Performance indicators for electronic library services

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..

* Egypt's Library of Alexandria (founded in 3rd century BC) and modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
* Islamic Spain's library of Cordoba, founded in 9th century.
* Ambrosian Library in Milan opened to the public, December 8, 1609.
* Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, founded between 669-631 BC.
* Baghdad's House of Wisdom, founded in 8th century AD.
* 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
* Tripoli's Dar il-'ilm, destroyed in 1109.
* Dutch Royal Library in The Hague, 1798
* Egypt's library of Cairo, founded in 10th century.
* 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.
* Haskell Free Library and Opera House, which straddles the Canada-US border.
* House of Commons Library, Westminster, London. Established 1818.
* ITU Mustafa Inan Library. Established 1795. The largest collection on technical (science and engineering) materials in Turkey.
* Jagiellonian Library at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, 1364.
* Jenkins Law Library in Philadelphia founded 1802.
* 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)
* Multnomah County Library in Oregon, largest public library west of the Mississippi River, 1864.
* 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 Israel (formerly: Jewish National and University Library) in Jerusalem, Israel, 1892.
* 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.
* Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, one of the largest repositories of books in the world.
* 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.
* St. Marys Church, Reigate, Surrey houses the first public lending library in England. Opened 14 March 1701.
* Trinity College Library, in Trinity College, Dublin, the largest library in Ireland. Since 1592.
* 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.
* Vatican Library in Vatican City, 1448 (but existed before).
* Wellcome Library in London
* Widener Library at Harvard University (Harvard University Library including all branches has the largest academic collection overall.)

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

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).

See public library for funding issues for public libraries.

Library use

Patrons may not know how to fully use the library's resources. This can be due to some individuals' unease in approaching a staff member. The greatest impact, though are the ways in which a library's content is displayed or accessed. An antiquated or clumsy search system, or a staff unwilling or untrained to engage its patrons will limit a library's usefulness. In United States public libraries, beginning in the 19th century these problems drove the emergence of the library instruction movement, which advocated library user education. One of the early leaders was John Cotton Dana. The basic form of library instruction is generally known as information literacy.

Libraries inform their users 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. Large libraries may be scattered within multiple buildings across a town, each having multiple floors, with multiple rooms housing the resources across a series of shelves. Once a user has located a resource within the catalog, they must then utilise navigational guidance to retrieve the resource physically; a process that may be assisted through signage, maps, GPS systems or RFID tagging.

Finland has the highest number of registered book borrowers per capita in the world. Over half of Finland's population are registered borrowers.[16] In the U.S., public library users have borrowed roughly 15 books per user per year from 1856 to 1978. From 1978 to 2004, book circulation per user declined approximately 50%. The growth of audiovisuals circulation, estimated at 25% of total circulation in 2004, accounts for about half of this decline.

Organization

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.

Types of libraries

Smaller libraries can sometimes be found in private homes.

Libraries can be divided into categories by several methods:

* by the entity (institution, municipality, or corporate body) that supports or perpetuates them
o school libraries
o public libraries
o private libraries
o corporate libraries
o government libraries
o academic libraries
o historical society libraries
* by the type of documents or materials they hold
o digital libraries
o data libraries
o picture (photograph) libraries
o slide libraries
o tool libraries
* by the subject matter of documents they hold
o architecture libraries
o fine arts libraries
o law libraries
o medical libraries
o theological libraries (See: Theological Libraries and Librarianship)
* by the users they serve
o military communities
o users who are blind or visually/physically handicapped (see National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped)
* by traditional professional divisions:
o 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 members of the general public in whole or in part.
o School libraries — Most public and private primary and secondary schools have libraries designed to support the school's curriculum.
o 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.
o 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 reading groups and toddler story time.
o 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.

Public libraries

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 beginning of the modern, free, open access libraries really got its start in the U.K. in 1847. Parliament appointed a committee, led by, William Ewart, on Public Libraries to consider the necessity of establishing libraries through the nation: In 1849 their report noted the poor condition of library service, it recommended the establishment of free public libraries all over the country, and it led to the Public Libraries Act in 1850, which allowed all cities with populations exceeding 10,000 to levy taxes for the support of public libraries. Another important act was the 1870 Public School Law, which increased literacy, thereby the demand for libraries, so by 1877, more than 75 cities had established free libraries, and by 1900 the number had reached 300. [14] This finally marks the start of the public library as we know it. And these acts led to similar laws in other countries, most notably the U.S.

1876 is a well known year in the history of librarianship. The American Library Association was formed, as well as The American Library Journal, Melvil Dewey published his decimal based system of classification, and the United States Bureau of Education published its report, "Public libraries in the United States of America; their history, condition, and management." The American Library Association continues to play a major role in libraries to this day, and Dewey's classification system, although under heavy criticism of late, still remains as the prevailing method of classification used in the United States.

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.

Library 2.0, a term coined in 2005, is the library's response to the challenge of Google, and an attempt to meet the changing needs and wants of the users, using web 2.0 technology. Some of the aspects of Library 2.0 include, commenting, tagging, bookmarking, discussions, using social software, plug-ins, and widgets. [15] Inspired by web 2.0, it is an attempt to make the library a more user driven institution.

Medieval Christian libraries

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." [11]

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.

Early modern libraries

From the fifteenth century in central and northern Italy, the assiduously assembled libraries of humanists and their enlightened patrons provided a nucleus around which an "academy" of scholars congregated in each Italian city of consequence. In Rome, the papal collections were brought together by Pope Nicholas V, in separate Greek and Latin libraries, and housed by Pope Sixtus IV, who consigned the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana to the care of his librarian, the humanist Bartolomeo Platina in February 1475.[12] In the sixteenth century Sixtus V bisected Bramante's Cortile del Belvedere with a cross-wing to house the Apostolic Library in suitable magnificence. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw other privately-endowed libraries assembled in Rome: the Vallicelliana, formed from the books of Saint Filippo Neri, with other distinguished libraries such as that of Cesare Baronio, the Biblioteca Angelica founded by the Augustinian Angelo Rocca, which was the only truly public library in Counter-Reformation Rome; the Biblioteca Alessandrina with which Pope Alexander VII endowed the University of Rome; the Biblioteca Casanatense of the Cardinal Girolamo Casanate; and finally the Biblioteca Corsiniana founded by the bibliophile Clement XII Corsini and his nephew Cardinal Neri Corsini, still housed in Palazzo Corsini in via della Lungara.

A number of factors combined to create a "golden age of libraries" between 1600 and 1700: The quantity of books had gone up, as the cost had gone down, there was a renewal in the interest of classical literature and culture, nationalism was encouraging nations to build great libraries, universities were playing a more prominent role in education, and renaissance thinkers and writers were producing great works. Some of the more important libraries include the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the Library of the British Museum, the Mazarine Library in Paris, and the National Central Library in Italy, the Prussian State Library, the German State Library, the M.E. Saltykov-Schedrin State Public Library of St. Petersburg, and many more.

Islamic libraries

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. 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. In Aleppo, for example the largest and probably the oldest mosque library, the Sufiya, located at the city's Grand Umayyad Mosque, contained a large book collection of which 10 000 volumes were reportedly bequeathed by the city's most famous ruler, Prince Sayf al-Dawla. [7] 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.[8]

By the 8th century first Iranians and then Arabs had imported the craft of papermaking from China, with a paper 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 9th century Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil of Iraq, even ordered the construction of a ‘zawiyat qurra literally an enclosure for readers which was `lavishly furnished and equipped.' In Shiraz Adhud al-Daula (d. 983) set up a library, described by the medieval historian, al-Muqaddasi, as`a complex of buildings surrounded by gardens with lakes and waterways. The buildings were topped with domes, and comprised an upper and a lower story with a total, according to the chief official, of 360 rooms.... In each department, catalogues were placed on a shelf... the rooms were furnished with carpets...'. [9] The libraries often employed translators and copyists in large numbers, in order to render into Arabic the bulk of the available Persian, Greek, Roman and Sanskrit non-fiction and the classics of literature. This flowering of Islamic learning ceased centuries later when learning began declining in the Islamic world, after many of these libraries were destroyed by Mongol invasions. 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.

A number of distinct features of the modern library were introduced in the Islamic world, where libraries not only served as a collection of manuscripts as was the case in ancient libraries, but also as a public library and lending library, a centre for the instruction and spread of sciences and ideas, a place for meetings and discussions, and sometimes as a lodging for scholars or boarding school for pupils. The concept of the library catalogue was also introduced in medieval Islamic libraries, where books were organized into specific genres and categories.[10]

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.

History

Antiquity

The first libraries were composed, for the most part, of unpublished records, a particular type of library called archives. 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. There is also evidence of libraries at Nippur of about 1900 B.C. and those at Nineveh of about 700 B.C. as showing a library classification system.[1]


Libraries in the Hellenic world and Rome

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, in the 5th century BC. The celebrated book collectors of Hellenistic Antiquity were listed in the late second century in Deipnosophistae:[2]

Polycrates of Samos and Pisistratus who was tyrant of Athens, and Euclides who was himself also an Athenian[3] 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[4] 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.[5]

All these libraries were Greek; the cultivated Hellenized diners in Deipnosophistae pass over the libraries of Rome in silence. By the time of Augustus there were public libraries near the forums of Rome: there were libraries in the Porticus Octaviae near the Theatre of Marcellus, in the temple of Apollo Palatinus, and in the Biblioteca Ulpiana in the Forum of Trajan. The state archives were kept in a structure on the slope between the Roman Forum and the Capitoline Hill.

Private libraries appeared during the late republic: Seneca inveighed against libraries fitted out for show by non-reading owners who scarcely read their titles in the course of a lifetime, but displayed the scrolls in bookcases (armaria) of citrus wood inlaid with ivory that ran right to the ceiling: "by now, like bathrooms and hot water, a library is got up as standard equipment for a fine house (domus).[6] Libraries were amenities suited to a villa, such as Cicero's at Tusculum, Maecenas's several villas, or Livy the Younger's, all described in surving letters. 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.

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.

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.

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.

With education firmly in Christian hands, however, many of the works of classical antiquity were no longer considered useful. Old texts were washed off the valuable parchment and papyrus, which were reused, forming palimpsests. As scrolls gave way to the new book-form, the codex, which was universally used for Christian literature, old manuscript scrolls were cut apart and used to stiffen leather bindings.


Ancient Chinese libraries

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.


Early Middle Ages

With the retrenchment of literacy in the Roman west during the fourth and fifth centuries, fewer private libraries were maintained, and those in unfortified villas proved to be among their most combustible contents.


Middle Ages

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.

Library

A library is a collection of information, sources, resources, and services, and the structure in which it is housed: it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual. In the more traditional sense, a library is a collection of books. The term can mean the collection, the building that houses such a collection, or both.

The 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 works of art on various storage media such as microform (microfilm/microfiche), audio tapes, CDs, LPs, cassettes, videotapes, and DVDs. Libraries may also provide public facilities to access CD-ROMs, 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, librarians, who are experts at finding and organizing information and at interpreting information needs.

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.