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Foundation of Library and Information Science

Notes It gives translation services to provide the desired information to the users in their
convenient language;

It also provides intranet as well as internet facility to the users in order to access the
library collection and catalogues at their desktop;
It responds to the reference queries and make retrospective search of literature as per the
users’ demand;
It compiles bibliographies, union catalogues, documentation lists, newspaper-clippings,
accession lists etc. to save the time of its users;

It provides inter library loan (ILL) facility to the users;
It gives user orientation training through personal interaction with users and by library
brochure and pamphlets to make the users familiar with the library collection and services.

Special libraries have become integrated into the information and knowledge value chain of
their parent organisations, achieving in that respect a huge advantage in comparison to public
libraries.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
13. A special Library is a ……………….. for the generation, storage and use of information.
14. A special Library gives …………………… regarding new arrivals and latest services to the
users.
15. A special Library gives …………………. services to provide the desired information to the
users in their convenient language.
16. A special Library gives user ………………. training through personal interaction with
users and by library brochure and pamphlets.

Case Study Patterns of User-visit, Movement and Length of Stay
in a Special Library

he user-behaviour within the library in terms of physical interactions with various
library services and facilities is an interesting and less explored area in user research.
TLike ‘use of library’, user-interactions with a library is also a phenomenon of a
minority of users. In fact, both the use of library and user-interactions with library are
highly interdependent and related. However, there is not much work done to study and
understand user-interactions with libraries. What is available in literature can be termed
as fragmentary stray attempts to study some interactions of users with libraries? This may
be partly due to the time-consuming observation technique to be followed for the purpose.
For the same reason many use-studies also did not venture to consider the in-house use of
library documents.

A user visits the library for many purposes. Interestingly, Slater and Fisher (1969, p 29)
found that 38% of their respondents visited their libraries for work space (11% exclusively
for work space). Even in the study of science library at MIT (Bush et. al., 1956, P 88) a
considerable number of persons used the library only as a study hall to make use of their
Contd....

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