أنواع المكتبات ووظائفها

• Libraries have been evolving since the beginning of the twentieth century, adapting their functions to the services they provide to readers and researchers and are classified into types.

General Classification of Libraries

• Public Libraries: Serve a general, non-specific readership, often catering to the average reader and may include the national library.
• Private Libraries: Serve a specific audience of beneficiaries or a particular organization.
• Specialized Libraries: Cater to a specific field or subject.

Public Libraries

• Definition:

• Established based on a specific law or a previously issued law.

• Open to all classes and ages free of charge.

• Focus on the use of library materials and providing regular services.

• Generally funded by public funds.

• Services:

• Offer culture and education to all groups including children, adults, the already educated, and those just beginning their education and contribute to literacy campaigns.

• Provide specific information and answer questions from readers and researchers upon request.

• Encourage constructive use of leisure time through reading for recreation or entertainment.

• Provide readers and researchers with knowledge and technical skills.

• Develop artistic appreciation related to the arts such as music and literature.

• Help spread ideas contained in their scientific materials, contributing to the revival of old heritage or traditions.

Branch Libraries

• Usually affiliated with a main public library.
• Established to serve a specific area that is far from the main library.
• Bring library services closer and make them more accessible.
• May be established to serve a specific environment (industrial, agricultural, etc.) with its own conditions and needs for a particular type of service.
• Need components that guarantee its success so should be provided with collections of publications that meet the needs of its readers and qualified staff who can provide excellent service.
• Since they are part of the main library, a good reputation benefits the main library.

Mobile Libraries

• A collection of books transported in a specially equipped vehicle.
• Equipped with shelves that can hold sets of books, which are of 2000+ books.
• Often travel to rural areas that lack library services or where library services are weak.
• Arranged to facilitate readers' access to the materials they need and their routes are periodic.
• Arrange for home visits in remote or elevated areas.

Public Libraries for Children

• In addition to providing services such as allocating a place for children or allocating specific collections for them, there are public libraries specifically for children where all beneficiaries are children without any other categories.
• The role of public libraries for children is to guide children to read for pleasure and self-discovery, which is the difference between them and school libraries.

National Library

• Responsible for collecting and preserving the written intellectual output of a country for the benefit of future generations.

• Responsibilities:

• Collect all publications, manuscripts, and related materials concerning the state, whether published domestically or abroad.

• Legal deposit center by law which requires authors, printers, and publishers to deposit a specific number of copies (e.g., ten) of each published item, under penalty of law.

• Acquire and preserve materials related to human civilization and become the main source for providing scholars and researchers with its resources.

• Serves as the national bibliography.

• Act as a major center for lending between libraries domestically and internationally.

• Organize the exchange of publications domestically and internationally.

• Provide special services directly or indirectly to specific groups such as the blind or sailors.

• Offer consultations and technical services to libraries that request this in areas of organization, building design, and the like.

• Organize the supply of local libraries with foreign publications in a cooperative manner to save money and facilitate access to publications.

• Provide special library services to legislative and executive bodies such as the Parliament and the Prime Minister's office.

Private Libraries - School Library

• Services:
• Actively participate in the school curriculum.
• Supplement the school curriculum by sharpening thinking and expanding imagination.
• Encourage the use of printed materials as a source of information.
• Facilitate reading for recreational purposes.
• Train children in the proper use of the library.
• Teaching good social habits that regulate self-control, self-reliance, initiative, and respect for the rights and property of others.
• Helping faculty members by providing them with everything new in the field of education.
• Libraries:
• Elementary School Library: Serves young beginners and provides services based on certain foundations.
• A comfortable place and suitable furniture for small children to help them sit and read in the library.
• Acquire books with special fonts and attractive drawings that suit the minds of young children, facilitate reading and understanding for them, and train them to visit the library.
• Allow them to borrow books.
• Has simplified references.
• An area for a librarian to assist and guide young learners.
• Middle School Library: It is a relatively recent development.
• Serve the school curricula.
• Provide collections of various scientific materials for recreation and free reading.
• Acquire suitable sets of reference books.
• Provide sets of materials that help teachers teaching.
• Guides students to the best ways to use the library.
• Guide and orient students in what they read.
• High School Library (General or Technical - Commercial, Agricultural, Industrial):
• Contributes by helping instructors in new educational experiences.
• Aiding the inclination, they also help students in their studies on the one hand, and in the areas of their personal preferences and talents on the other, which often become clear during high school. -Controlling the success of the high school library’s function are mainly factors: the services provided by the competent assigned librarian with assistance of instructors in each school subject.

Types Of Libraries That Serve Specific Organizations (Ministry, Organization, Company, Etc.)

• This type of library exists in some governmental or economic organizations or in the private sector, and the role of these libraries is limited to serving the employees of the organization.
• In a ministry, for example, the beneficiaries are the employees of the ministry, regardless of their categories: senior management, executive employees, and workers.
• In an industrial company, the beneficiaries are those working in the industrial company with their categories, senior management, executive employees, technicians, workers and engineers.
• These libraries should provide the acquisitions that help these categories in the field of general culture, entertainment and promotion, in addition to the technical books related to the company's specialization.

Specialized Libraries

• Serve a specific area, and beneficiaries are specialists in the field, and has several forms.

• College Libraries:

• Support educational programs in educational and research aspects.

• Provide research methods in the largest number of research fields according to specialization.

• Allow non-students to benefit from library services.

• Cooperate with the main university library in training new library staff.

• Some university libraries can carry out some of the national library's services if this is more conducive to ease, effectiveness, and economy.

• Success Factors of a College Library:

• Adequacy of scientific sources acquired by the library in the fields of research and expansion.

• Competence of the staff providing library services.

• Organization of acquisitions.

• Reputation of the place and equipment.

• Interconnection between the library and educational and administrative policies.

• Consistency between the books in the library and those in the local environment.

• Institutes Libraries: The difference between university and institute is not big.

• The scope of study in the institute is more specific than in the university.

• Library is consistent in function and success factors.

• University Library :

  • Focuses on the acquisitions needed to meet the college's needs at the undergraduate level and does not care about scientific research materials.

• Specialized: the university library’s responsibility expands to include all university colleges.

Specialized Libraries

• Services:
• Library technical aids often include, but are not limited, of research assistance regarding summaries and text

Library Cooperation :

• Cooperative Acquisition and Centralized Acquisition:
• In the field of purchases, cooperation usually occurs in the scope of university libraries and research libraries, so that each library specializes in one of the branches of knowledge.
• Each library tries to obtain everything that can be collected from what is written on the topics that these branches include.
• This ensures that sharing is a must.
• Exchange of Publications and Disposal of Duplicate Copies:
• One part is the exchange of publications, it is one source of books library.
• Cooperating libraries can exchange their publications.
• Storage Libraries: . - It is a library established in a region or city to serve a number of libraries in that specific region.

Methods needed in managing a library :

• Centralized cataloguing to make libraries easier to manage.
• Cooperation on the area of managing and maintaining the library system
• Cooperation in lending amongst other co-operatives to allow those to acquire new skills for the upkeep of the libraries.
• Photographic printing of publications that cannot be borrowed: This area relates to technical co-operation with other libraries. Some magazines, some documents, references, and manuscripts can’t be borrowed because a lot of it is primary and necessary for research.
• Co-operation in the field of reference services: When a reader of has questions on something.