Page 9 - DLIS102_LIBRARY_AND_ITS_USERS

Library and its Users

Notes Trained manpower

User education and training
Security against hacking and sabotage.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
1. The statistics collected by the ...... study suggest that European libraries employed nearly
337 thousand staff in the year 2001.
2. A library where access points and house keeping operations are computerized is called an
...... .
3. Digital library is a collection of ...... .

1.2 Types of Library Resources

The resources provided by the digital libraries can be classified into in-house resources and external
resources. In-house resources are those resources that are stored in the web server locally and made
accessible through the network. E-books, course notes, and application notes, etc., are examples of
the in-house resources.
The external resources are those materials that are not stored in the web server. An external resource
includes online journals, online databases, online e-books, etc., External resources are provided by
different publishers-ASME, ACM, IEEE, Oxford University Press Journal (OUP) and many more
are there. The publisher provides access to their full text materials by two methods:
(i) Username and password
(ii) Internet Protocol (IP) address based Access Control Method.

1.3 Changing Role of Library Professional in Digital Age

Library in Early Days

The collection of written knowledge in some sort of repository is a practice as old as civilization
itself. About 30,000 clay tablets found in ancient Mesopotamia date back more than 5,000 years.
Archaelogists have uncovered papyrus scrolls from 1300-1200bc in the ancient Egyptian cities of
Amarna and Thebes and thousands of clay tablets in the palace of King Sennacherib, Assyrian ruler
from 704-681bc, at Nineveh, his capital city. More evidence turned up with the discovery of the
personal collection of Sennacherib’s grandson, King Ashurbanipal.
The name for the repository eventually became the library. Whether private or public, the library
has been founded, built, destroyed and rebuilt. The library, often championed, has been a survivor
throughout its long history and serves as a testament to the thirst for knowledge.

Literacy Builds Libraries
Early collections may have surfaced from the Near East, but the ancient Greeks propelled the idea
through their heightened interest in literacy and intellectual life. Public and private libraries
flourished through a well-established process: authors wrote on a variety of subjects, scriptoria or
copy shops produced the books, and book dealers sold them. Copying books was an exacting business
and one in high demand, because a book’s “trustworthiness” translated into quality. An Athenian
decree called for a repository of “trustworthy” copies. Though the public library first appeared by

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