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Foundation of Library and Information Science

Notes compilations, sales literature, trade catalogues, financial statements, government documents,
etc., form the other sources of information.
The second major component of the collection is information generated within the organisation,
such as, research reports, technical memoranda, laboratory note books, working papers,
correspondence, house organs, newsletters, sales literature and company and competitive
advertising, etc.
Use of resource outside the organisation is the third component of the special library collection.
Usually, the special library has to depend on external resources for information and materials
outside its scope of activities. In fact, special libraries quite often use public, academic and
research libraries through formal inter-library loan procedures.

8.3.2 Processing and Organisation

Special libraries employ a wide variety of methods in organising their collections. The physical
storage of its collection is determined on the basis of use. Catalogues, indexes, abstracts are
prepared on the basis of ease of use, scope of the activities of the parent organisation and
coverage. Classification, cataloguing and indexing systems also are simple in their design but
are chosen to meet their requirements effectively.

8.3.3 Services

The services offered by Special Libraries are as follows:

Reference Services: Reference and research services range from answering simple reference
questions to undertaking complex research and literature services. Users are usually assisted
in the pursuit of their own search for literature but quite often information expertise is
made available in locating requested information and transmitting them in the most
useful form. In fact, expertise is built into the special libraries’ staff to handle complicated
and complex problems of information handling. Some special libraries offer translation
services either in house or obtain them from outside sources.

Did u know? In most of the special libraries, a close working relationship exists between
the library staff and users to derive the maximum benefit from the library unit.
Current Awareness and Routing Services: Special libraries have developed a wide range
of services to keep their users informed of new and current developments. Routing of
current issues of periodicals is one of the most common functions of special libraries. The
library periodically surveys its clientele as to which periodicals they wish to see on a
regular basis, then circulates them to readers, as issues arrive. Current acquisition bulletins,
indexes to current periodicals and title alerts are some of the different types of current
awareness services provided by special libraries.
Anticipatory Service: Besides these services, annotated lists, abstract bulletins, news
summaries, digests or other types of anticipatory service are also provided by special
libraries. In recent decades, many of the special libraries provide computer based selective
dissemination of information (SDI) service. In India, SDI services are also provided but
not necessarily through computers.

Retrieval Services: Abstracting, indexing and preparation of digests are of paramount
importance in special libraries. Special project and retrospective files are built up in special
libraries for meeting their requirements on projects or requirements for new product or
process development.

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