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Reference Sources and Services

Notes Cutter, and the Library of Congress system. Since, the 1930s public library systems have had several
technological tools at their disposal, including micro photographic techniques for copying, computer
data banks enabling the storage of far more information and the search of indexes and catalogues far
more quickly than ever before, and computer networks that provide instant access to materials in
libraries throughout the world and to the Internet and its increasingly rich resources.
Major university libraries in the United States must work to meet an enormous demand for research
materials and spend nearly $5 million a year for books and related supplies such as binding materials.
Preservation of pulp-based paper, which becomes brittle after a few decades, has become a major
drain on library resources; many libraries will no longer acquire books that are not printed on acid-
free paper. Such libraries typically have private endowments as well as receive federal and state
support. Other libraries throughout the world operate on far smaller budgets, frequently with severe
financial handicaps.
The architectural design of modern public libraries in the United States has placed the highest priority
on functionalism. Outstanding examples of library construction include the central housing for
collections in New York City (1911), Los Angeles (1926; major renovation 1993), Baltimore (1932),
and San Francisco (1996) and university buildings at Columbia (1896; no longer a library) and
Harvard (1915). Modern buildings tend toward modular construction and smaller, separate housing
for special collections.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
1. Three systems of book classification are widely used to facilitate access to library collections:
the Dewey decimal system of Melvil Dewey, .............. and ......... the system.
2. Library is a collection of ...... .
3. NASSDOC is an example of ...... source of information.
4. Encyclopedia roughly divided into ...... parts.

2.3 Evolution of Library

The earliest known library was a collection of clay tablets in Babylonia in the 21st century B.C.
Ancient Egyptian temple libraries are known through the Greek writers. Diodorus Siculus describes
the library of Ramses III, c.1200 B.C. The extensively catalogued library of Assurbanipal (d. 626? B.C.)
in Nineveh was the most noted before that at Alexandria. The temple at Jerusalem contained a
sacred library.

The first public library in Greece was established in 330 B.C., in order to preserve
accurate examples of the work of the great dramatists.

The most famous libraries of antiquity were those of Alexandria, founded by Ptolemy I, which
contained some 700,000 Greek scrolls. The library at Pergamum, founded or expanded by Eumenes
II, rivaled those at Alexandria. The first Roman libraries were brought from Greece, Asia Minor,
and Syria as a result of conquests in the 1st and 2nd century B.C. Caius Asinius Pollio established
the first public library in Rome, but the great public libraries of the Roman Empire were the Octavian
and the Palatine and the more important Ulpian library, founded during the reign of Trajan. In
addition to these public collections, there were many fine private libraries by the time the Roman
Republic was ended in 27 B.C. Of these there remain only fragments of one at Herculaneum.

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