Page 35 - DLIS105_REFERENCE_SOURCES_AND_SERVICES

Reference Sources and Services

Notes There are several sorts of libraries in the United States and elsewhere that exist apart from the
public and university systems. Three major categories of these are private libraries, usually housing
special collections, e.g., the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City of rare books in the humanities
and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. presidential libraries, which contain the
papers of past presidents not held in the Library of Congress, e.g., the Jimmy Carter Library, Atlanta,
Ga., the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kans., the Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor,
Mich., the Rutherford B. Hayes Library, Fremont, Ohio, the Herbert Hoover Library, West Branch,
Iowa, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library at the Univ. of Texas, Austin, the John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Library, Boston, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y., and the Harry S. Truman
Library, Independence, Mo.; and industrial libraries formed by many corporations to house research
works relevant to their business.

Visit the most reputed library of your state and write a report about it.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:
7. A modern library apart from books also keeps other materials such as motion pictures.
8. Darwin system of books classification is used by some libraries.
9. Modern library buildings tend to be more and more large and spacious.

2.5 Summary

• Modern libraries, in addition to providing patrons with access to books and other materials,
often publish lists of accessions and may maintain a readers’ advisory service. Interlibrary
loan services, lecture series, public book reviews, and the maintenance of special juvenile
collections are other important recent developments.
• 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.
• The earliest known library was a collection of clay tablets in Babylonia in the 21st century B.C.
• 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.
• Libraries in the United States and Great Britain benefited greatly from the philanthropy of
Andrew Carnegie, who gave more than $65 million for public library buildings in the United
States alone and strengthened local interest by making the grants contingent upon public
support.
• Within information science, attention has been given in recent years to human–computer
interaction, groupware, the semantic web, value sensitive design, iterative design processes
and to the ways people generate, use and find information. Today this field is called the Field
of Information, and there are a growing number of Schools and Colleges of Information.
Information science should not be confused with information theory, the study of a particular
mathematical concept of information, or with library science, a field related to libraries which
use some of the principles of information science.

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