Types of Libraries

Library is the store-house of knowledge for posterior use. Human knowledge can be
recorded and preserved in different media. Some years back, documents written or
printed in paper were considered as the best medium. But with the development of
science and technology today electronic multimedia have been widely used for
preservation of knowledge in the libraries of any kind whether it may be public,
academic, national or special library. Since the beginning of civilization human
beings have been putting emphasis on storing of information in different ways.
However, it must be admitted that libraries in ancient times were not like those of
the present days. Libraries are dynamic and grow along with human civilization. The
urge of social, economic, intellectual and cultural improvement necessitates the
development of different kinds of libraries.

Dissemination of right information to the right reader /user at the right time is the
dictum of all the library and information centers. In short library is an agency for
dissemination of information. The basic function of library is education. The purpose
of a library in modern society is to educate the community in a wider sense. Libraries
play a very important role in the educational process of formal and non-formal
learning, in research and development, in cultural activities, in spiritual and
ideological realms, in recreation and entertainment etc.

LIBRARY

Library is derived from the Latin word “Liber” which means ‘A BOOK’. Earlier a
library was “a place where books were written or kept”. This term was frequently
used as a “collection of books” and a librarian as a keeper or guard of books. This
word has taken centuries to become central point of all social actions and has got
recognition as a social institution.
Types of Library:

According to the mode of services rendered to the readers libraries are broadly
divided into four types:

1. Academic Library

2. Special Library

3. Public Library

4. National Library

TYPES of LIBRARIES

Academic Public Special National

School State Industrial General
College District Business Agriculture
University City Trade Medicine
Professional Town Arts
Institution
Research Institution Village Music
Mobile Blind
Prison

Academic Library

Academic library is the library which is attached to academic institutions like

schools, colleges and universities. An academic library serves more specifically the
students, research scholars, teachers and staff of the academic institution. Main
objective of an academic library is to give maximum learning materials to its
clientele so that they may be fully educated in their respective level. Academic
libraries are categorized into school libraries, college libraries and university
libraries.

An Academic Library has been defined as: “a library which is associated or attached
with any educational institution to support its educational programmes”.

Academic library is an integral part of formal education system which provides time
bound education from primary school level to university level. An academic library
works as a base for teaching, learning, research etc. We can categorize academic
libraries in to following three categories-

1. School Library

2. College Library

3. University Library.

Academic Institution Libraries in India

No. Schools Colleges Universities

1 Primary Junior Conventional
2 Middle Undergraduate Institutes of Science
3 Secondary Postgraduate Institutes of
Technology
4 Higher Secondary Institutes of Agriculture
Management
5 Polytechnics Engineering Medical
6 Open Schools Business Distance Education
7 Others Others Others
 1. School Library: A school library is a learning laboratory, providing a
variety of instructional media, essential for optimum support of the education
programme. The purpose of the school library is to attain the objectives of the
educational programme. It concerns with the development of effective
methods of thinking, inculcation of social attitudes, acquisition of important
information and promoting growth and development among the children.

DEFINITION

A library associated or connected with a school and used by the students, teachers
and staff of that school is called a SCHOOL LIBRARY. For example, DAV School
library, Delhi Public School library etc.

OBJECTIVES:

A school library has the following objectives-

• It supports all educational programmes of the school.

• It cultivates reading habits in school children.
• It develops their interest to use the library for their overall development.
• It inculcates the habit of seeking help of additional sources other than text
books.
• It develops self-learning skills of students.
• It helps teachers to improve their teaching expertise.
• It provides healthy material for recreational and entertainment purpose to
students, teachers and staff members.
• It keeps the teachers and management informed with the latest updates in
education sector.

FUNCTIONS:
To achieve the above said objectives a school library performs the following
functions-

▪ It provides suitable documents and information helpful in educational

programmes and extracurricular activities of the school.
▪ It makes available text books and other additional reading material for all
subjects as per the requirement of teachers and students.
▪ It procures latest teaching learning material in the form of books, CD, audio-
visuals etc. to improve the teaching skills of teachers.
▪ It keeps reference books, dictionaries, year books, directories, encyclopedias,
travel books etc. so that students and teachers can get help of these other than
the text books.
▪ It makes available biographies, autobiographies of freedom fighters and other
national and international personalities to develop respect and love for nation
and humanity.
▪ It procures magazines like Nandan, Chmpak, India Today, Readers Digest
etc., different newspapers, and other light reading material like fiction books,
general knowledge books, poetry books, short animated films, documentaries
etc. for healthy recreation and entertainment purpose of students, teachers and
school staff.
▪ It provides books of simple and meaningful stories of classics, panchtantra,
animals and birds to give moral values and ethics to children.
▪ It makes available biographies, autobiographies of freedom fighters and other
national and international personalities to develop respect and love for nation
and humanity.
The function of the school library is to help the students in the process of their self-
discovery, to adopt high ideals in life, improve scholastic efficiency through self-
study and to develop the capacity for critical thinking.

2. College Library: College performs an important function in educational

process. A college without a library is like a tree with no roots. The status of
every college is measured through the position of the library that it maintains.
Hence every college library should become a teaching instrument in itself. A
college library is expected to support the objectives of the college. Thus, the
basic function of a college library is to assist its parent body to carry out its
programmes.

OBJECTIVES:

The objectives of a college library are as follows:

• It helps in all educational and instructional programmes of the college.

• It develops a habit of deep and advanced studies of subjects beyond the text books
of subjects, in students.

• It prepares the students as an intelligent, aware, informative and enlightened person

to play the role of a responsible citizen.

• It assists the research work and lays down the initiative base for research work in
students.

• It informs the teachers with latest up-dates in their respective subject area.

• It provides healthy entertainment material to its users.

FUNCTIONS:

To achieve its objectives a college library performs the following functions:

▪ In order to help in all educational and instructional programmes of the college
it develops its collection by acquiring different documents like textbooks,
audiovisuals etc. related to various courses offered by the college.
▪ It also procures a good amount of more advanced books other than text books
on different subjects to develop a habit of deep and advanced studies among
college students.
▪ It acquires reference books such as encyclopedias and other books on each
and every aspect of different subjects to enhance the understanding of subjects
among students on their own besides class-room teaching and text-books.
▪ To prepare the students for different professions and occupations and to
develop their skills it procures self learning material, competitive exam books
etc. are provided by the library.
▪ It procures newspapers, weekly and monthly magazines on current events,
general knowledge books etc. to make aware its users about their
surroundings.
▪ It subscribes useful journals, research bulletins on different subjects as per the
recommendations of faculty (teachers) for research work and to keep the
teachers abreast with the latest in their disciplines.
▪ If some document is not available in the library it brings it on inter-library
loan on demand of its users.
▪ It also provides light reading material like fiction, biographies, magazines,
travel book guides, audio-visuals etc. to give healthy leisure time to its users.
▪ It procures general reference books such as dictionaries, directories,
encyclopedias, yearbooks as well as some subject specific reference books.
▪ It provides orientation training to its new users to use the library and
disseminate information time to time regarding new library services and latest
books.
 3. University Library: A library is more important in a University, because
a library can do without a University where as a university cannot function
without a library. It is also known as the heart of university. A university
library is an integral part of the institution. It is primarily maintained for the
benefit of students, officers, faculty members and for those who are engaged
in research work. It plays a very important role in the national life of the
community by acquiring material for educational use for the benefit of
students and teaching departments.The major distinction between a college
library and university library that a university library lays emphasis mainly
upon research. Thus, we find that research is a major objective of a university
library. In others words, it circulates knowledge to generate new knowledge

OBJECTIVES:

A University Library has the following objectives:

• To provide facilities for all teaching, learning, educational and research

programmes of the university.

• To cater to the information needs of teachers, students, researchers associated with

the university.

• It provides facilities to its users for intellectual development which is a power of

acquiring ideas through individual efforts;

• It conserves knowledge.

• By putting knowledge to use for research purpose it makes extension of knowledge.

• By providing latest knowledge to teachers in their field for effective teaching it

makes transmission of knowledge possible.
FUNCTIONS:

The universally recognized basic functions performed by a University Library are:

▪ By procuring comprehensive range of documents including books,

manuscripts, journals, magazines, newspapers etc. on varied subjects, it
conserves knowledge and ideas.
▪ By processing the procured documents with the help of classification,
cataloguing, proper shelf arrangements it gives easy and open access to
knowledge to its users;
▪ In order to organize huge collection of documents it keeps them in different
sections on the basis of their categorization like text book section, reference
section, journal section, thesis section etc.
▪ It provides facility of inter-library loan to its users if document desired by user
is not available in the library.
▪ A modern university library interacts with different information networks to
give easy access to e-sources/ data to more users so that they could access the
desired information even from their workplace. For example, in India
university libraries use the facility of INFLIBNET for the same purpose.
▪ It also provides entertainment and healthy leisure to users by providing
different newspapers, magazines, short story books, fiction, internet facility
etc.
▪ It gives the user orientation training to new enrolled users to make them feel
at home and to acquaint them with the library system so that they could make
maximum use of library services.
▪ With the help of display of new arrivals, old book exhibitions, information
bulletins about new library services etc. it keeps the users updated with the
library Activities.
 ▪ It provides reference service through reference section to establish a contact
between the right reader and the right document in a personal way to attract
more users.

Special Library

Special library became popular since the beginning of 20th century. A special library
is one which serves a particular group of people, such as the employees of a firm of
government department, or the staff and members of a professional or research
organization. Such a library deals essentially in information (Krishan Kumar; 1987;
72)

In 20th century with the development of industrial, technological and scientific

advances the concept of special libraries came in to existence. The growing need for
specialized information for further development and research came to play a vital
role in the expansion of special libraries.

DEFINITION

According to American Library Association (ALA ) glossary of library and

information science-SPECIAL LIBRARY is “a library established, supported and
administered by a business firm, private corporation, association, government
agency, or other special interest group or agency to meet the information needs of
its members or staff in pursuing the goals of the organization. Scope of collections
and services is limited to the subject interest of the host or parent organization”.

Examples of Special Library

1. National Library for the Blind, it deals with special kind of documents i.e.
Braille and audio books and also with special user group i.e. persons with
visual impairment or blind.
 2. Library of Supreme Court of India, which keeps major collection of court
cases and decisions which are mainly used by lawyers and judges, thus the
user group is also of a special kind.
3. Library of Indian Standards Institute (ISI) mainly keeps patents which are
special type of document and used by some special user group and related to
some specific field or area.

OBJECTIVES:

The main objectives of a special library are as follows:

• It serves the information needs of its parent body.

• It disseminates updated and significant information in the concerned field.
• It gives pinpointed information promptly.
• It provides desired information to its users on demand and mostly in
anticipation. The users also get new ideas and inspiration to initiate new
projects.

FUNCTIONS:

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 user.
▪ 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.
▪ 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.

Public Library

A public library (also called circulating library) is a library which is accessible by

the public and is generally funded from public sources (such as tax money) and may
be operated by the civil servants. Taxing bodies for public libraries may be at any
 level from local to national central government level. The public library is an
excellent model of government at its best. A locally controlled public good, it serves
every individual freely, in as much or as little depth as he or she wants. (Wikipedia)

According to Dr. S.R. Ranganathan Public Library is “a public institution or

establishment charged with the care of collection of books and the duty of
making them accessible to those who require the use of them.”
This definition describes two functions of a library:
I. The care of a collection of books means protection and preservation of collection.
II. To make them accessible in real sense so that the right person can get right
information at the right time.
OBJECTIVES:

The objectives of a public library are associated with its parent body i.e.
community and its duty are to cater to the information and recreational needs of
its users i.e. community members. The main objectives of a public library are as
follows:
• To provide up-to-date and authentic information on all subjects;
• To provide services free of cost or at nominal rates to each member of the
society without any discrimination;
• To provide a harmless and elevating use of leisure;
• To be responsible for preservation and development of cultural and
antiquarian heritage of the community.

FUNCTIONS:
A modern public library performs different functions in the society to achieve its
objectives and works as:
 ▪ Information Dissemination Centre
▪ Life Long Learning Centre
▪ Community’s Intellectual Centre
▪ Recreation Centre
▪ Community’s Culture Preservation Centre
▪ Instrument of Social Change
▪ Representative of Democracy

National Library

A national library is a library specifically established by the government of a country

to serve as the preeminent repository of information for that country. Unlike public
libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous
rare, valuable, or significant works. A National Library is that library which has the
duty of collecting and preserving the literature of the nation within and outside the
country, Thus, National Library are those libraries whose community is the nation
at large.

DEFINITION:

A NATIONAL LIBRARY keeps all documents of and about a nation under some
legal provision and thus represents publications of and about the whole nation.

For example:

• National Library of India-Kolkata,

• British Library-London,
• Library of Congress- Washington,
• The Russian State Library-Moscow,
• The Bibliotheque Nationale- Paris.
OBJECTIVES:

A National Library works with the following objectives:

• It procures nation’s all literary output under legal provision as well the foreign
literature about that nation.
• It works as a depository house for the said heritage by preserving it.
• It disseminates information about the stored and procured literary wealth
through different publications and services.
• It works as a national referral and bibliographic exchange centre.
• It coordinates with the other libraries in a country to develop a national library
system.

FUNCTIONS:

Some basic functions performed by a national library are:

▪ It works as a national depository library for all literary work published in the
country.
▪ It freely collects copies of all published material in the country under legal
provision or by law.
▪ It also procures foreign publications about the country and by the authors of
Indian origin living abroad.
▪ It compiles national bibliographies to disseminate information about literary
output of the country.
▪ It works as an apex body of the national library system and coordinates with
other libraries in the country.
▪ It develops and maintains different bibliographic data bases and works as a
national bibliographic center.
▪ It also exchanges data and documents at national and international level.
 ▪ It produces national union catalogues, current, retrospective and subject
bibliographies.
▪ It makes provision for practical training of library professionals.
▪ It procures and preserves manuscripts.
▪ It also keeps photocopy collection of available documents for national and
international library lending.
▪ It provides reading, lending, consulting facilities to researchers, writers and
other users.
▪ It works as a national referral center of authentic information for all literary
work of the country and responds to all national and international queries from
individuals as well as from private and government organizations.

Mrs Shalini Gupta

Assistant Professor

Dept. of Lib. & Inf. Sci.

M.M. College

Modinagar

Declaration: Articles shared in this paper are collected from different sources
available on the internet to help students of Library and Information Science.
Sources are mentioned in the reference section of the article.

REFERENCES:
1. http://www.lisbdnet.com/types-libraries-academic-public-national-
special-library/
2. http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/34898/1/Unit-2.pdf
3. IGNOU. Library and Society. BLIS-01. Block 2. Unit 5-8. New Delhi:
IGNOU, 1999. Print.
4. https://www.kuk.ac.in/userfiles/file/distance_education/Year-2011-
2012/B_Lib%20lecture%201.pdf