A library is a collection of sources of information and similar resources, made accessible to a defined community for reference or borrowing. It provides physical or digital access to material, and may be a physical building or room, or a virtual space, or both. A library's collection can include books, periodicals, newspapers, manuscripts, films, maps, prints, documents, microform, CDs, cassettes, videotapes, DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, e-books, audiobooks, databases, and other formats. Libraries range in size from a few shelves of books to several million items.
The word library derives from the Latin liber, meaning “book,” whereas a Latinized Greek word, bibliotheca, is the origin of the word for library in German, Russian, and the Romance languages.
In Latin and Greek, the idea of a bookcase is represented by Bibliotheca and Bibliothēkē (Greek: βιβλιοθήκη): derivatives of these mean library in many modern languages, e.g. French bibliothèque.
The first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of writing—the clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in Sumer, some dating back to 2600 BC. Private or personal libraries made up of written books appeared in classical Greece in the 5th century BC. In the 6th century, at the very close of the Classical period, the great libraries of the Mediterranean world remained those of Constantinople and Alexandria.
A library is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, a corporation, or a private individual. Public and institutional collections and services may be intended for use 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. In addition to providing materials, libraries also provide the services of librarians who are experts at finding and organizing information and at interpreting information needs. Libraries often provide quiet areas for studying, and they also often offer common areas to facilitate group study and collaboration. Libraries often provide public facilities for access to their electronic resources and the Internet. Modern libraries are increasingly being redefined as places to get unrestricted access to information in many formats and from many sources. They are extending services beyond the physical walls of a building, by providing material accessible by electronic means, and by providing the assistance of librarians in navigating and analyzing very large amounts of information with a variety of digital tools.
LIST OF LIBRARIES AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES
List of libraries on which articles are there in the Librarianship Studies & Information Technology blog.
Campus Bio-Medico University Library - The Campus Bio-Medico University (UCBM) Library is an academic medical library that provides services to the university’s students, researchers, faculty members, and medical staff. The library houses more than 25,000 volumes covering the many and varied aspects of medicine and healthcare, but the collection also includes a broad range of other disciplines. In addition, the library maintains a historical medical book collection for users who are interested in the history of medicine. This collection contains books with the historical value printed between the late sixteenth- and the mid-twentieth centuries. Moreover, the library holds a collection of titles related to the history of hospitals and health institutions of the world. In so doing, the library has built a significant resource for research in the field of medical history, bringing value to the university.
Library of Congress - Library of Congress, the de facto national library of the United States and the largest library in the world. Its collection was growing at a rate of about two million items per year; it reached more than 155 million items in 2012. The Library of Congress serves members, committees, and staff of the U.S. Congress, other government agencies, libraries throughout the country and the world, and the scholars, researchers, artists, and scientists who use its resources. It is the national centre for library service to the blind and physically handicapped, and it offers many concerts, lectures, and exhibitions for the general public.
Campus Bio-Medico University Library - The Campus Bio-Medico University (UCBM) Library is an academic medical library that provides services to the university’s students, researchers, faculty members, and medical staff. The library houses more than 25,000 volumes covering the many and varied aspects of medicine and healthcare, but the collection also includes a broad range of other disciplines. In addition, the library maintains a historical medical book collection for users who are interested in the history of medicine. This collection contains books with the historical value printed between the late sixteenth- and the mid-twentieth centuries. Moreover, the library holds a collection of titles related to the history of hospitals and health institutions of the world. In so doing, the library has built a significant resource for research in the field of medical history, bringing value to the university.
Library of Congress - Library of Congress, the de facto national library of the United States and the largest library in the world. Its collection was growing at a rate of about two million items per year; it reached more than 155 million items in 2012. The Library of Congress serves members, committees, and staff of the U.S. Congress, other government agencies, libraries throughout the country and the world, and the scholars, researchers, artists, and scientists who use its resources. It is the national centre for library service to the blind and physically handicapped, and it offers many concerts, lectures, and exhibitions for the general public.
United States National Agricultural Library (NAL) - The United States National Agricultural Library (NAL) is one of the world's largest agricultural research libraries and serves as a national library of the United States and as the library of the United States Department of Agriculture. Located in Beltsville, Maryland, it is one of five national libraries of the United States (along with the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, the National Transportation Library, and the National Library of Education). It is also the coordinator for the Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC), a national network of state land-grant institutions and coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) field libraries. NAL was established on May 15, 1862, by the signing of the Organic Act by Abraham Lincoln. It served as a departmental library until 1962, when the Secretary of Agriculture officially designated it as the National Agricultural Library. The first librarian, appointed in 1867, was Aaron B. Grosh. The National Agricultural Library houses one of the world's largest collections devoted to agriculture and its related sciences. NAL already provides access to all items in its collection through its physical location, but the Library is continually working toward delivering its collections to customers anywhere and anytime using the global reach of the Internet and the flexibility of digital formats. The NAL Digital Collections offers one avenue by which customers can use collection materials available in digital format, whether those materials originated in that format or were converted to it later. The NAL Digital Collections offers rich searching, browsing, and retrieval of digital materials and collections and provides reliable, long-term online access to selected publications.
Widener Library (Harvard University) - The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, housing some 3.5 million books in its "vast and cavernous" stacks, is the centerpiece of the Harvard College Libraries (the libraries of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences) and, more broadly, of the entire Harvard Library system. It honors 1907 Harvard College graduate and book collector Harry Elkins Widener, and was constructed by his mother Eleanor Elkins Widener after his death in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912.
World Digital Library - The World Digital Library (WDL) is a project of the U.S. Library of Congress, carried out with the support of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), and in cooperation with libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions, and international organizations from around the world. The WDL makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from all countries and cultures.
Widener Library (Harvard University) - The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, housing some 3.5 million books in its "vast and cavernous" stacks, is the centerpiece of the Harvard College Libraries (the libraries of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences) and, more broadly, of the entire Harvard Library system. It honors 1907 Harvard College graduate and book collector Harry Elkins Widener, and was constructed by his mother Eleanor Elkins Widener after his death in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912.
SEE ALSO
REFERENCES
- Wikipedia, "Library," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library (accessed July 12, 2017).
