Page 154 - DLIS001_FOUNDATION_OF_LIBRARY_AND_INFORMATION_SCIENCE

Unit 8: Special Libraries

Publication of Bulletins: The information about the new arrivals in the library are published Notes
in the form of acquisition lists or bulletins and supplied to all potential users. At times
annotations are added to these entries. For some subjects, this service is available
commercially.

Personnel and Staff: In general, special libraries are managed by a small staff. One of the
continuing debates in the field is whether a special librarian should be primarily a subject
specialist or a library professional or both. But most of the controversies on this issue are
getting resolved as persons with different subject expertise, are taking increasingly the
special librarianship and documentation. Thus, the new breeds of specialists are competent
and have the expertise required to handle various activities of a special library.

Task List the services generally provided by a special library.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:
9. Specialised reports form the second category of published information.
10. Retrieval services range from answering simple reference questions to undertaking
complex research and literature services.
11. Special libraries are managed by a large staff.
12. Routing of current issues of periodicals is one of the most common functions of special
libraries.

8.4 Functions of the Special Libraries

Special library is generally concerned with literature of a particular subject or a group of subjects
and extends its facilities to a particular type of clientele. A special Library is a power house for
the generation, storage and use of information. A special library performs primarily the following
functions:
It selects and procures documents and other sources of relevant information;
It processes the procured information or documents with the help of classification,
cataloguing, shelf arrangements, etc. to make them easily available for the users;
It subscribes to a good number of journals related to its area;
It provides indexing and abstracting services to the users to save their time;

It provides reference services to the users by telephone, by post or by e-mail;
It gives Current Awareness Service (CAS) regarding new arrivals and latest services to the
users;

It provides Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) service to the users as per their
subject interest and requirement;
It also gives document delivery service to its users at their doorstep;

It brings out library bulletins weekly/fortnightly/monthly to keep the users up to date
with latest information;

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 149