INTODUCTION ABOUT
LIBRARY
A library is a collection of books, and
possibly other materials and media, that is
accessible for use by its members and
members of allied institutions. Libraries
provide physical (hard copies)
or digital (soft copies) materials, and may
be a physical location, a virtual space, or
both. A library's collection normally
includes printed materials which may be
borrowed, and usually also includes a
reference section of publications which may
INTODUCTION ABOUT
LIBRARY
only be utilized inside the premises.
Resources such as commercial releases of
films, television programmes, other video
recordings, radio, music and audio
recordings may be available in many
formats. These include DVDs, Blu-
rays, CDs, cassettes, or other applicable
formats such as microform. They may also
provide access to information, music or
other content held on bibliographic
databases.
Libraries may provide physical or digital
access to material, and may be a physical
location, virtual space, or both. A library's
collection can
include books, periodicals, newspapers, ma
nuscripts, films, maps, prints, documents,
microform, CDs, cassettes, videotapes, DVD
s, Blu-ray Discs, e-
books, audiobooks, databases, table
games, video games, and other formats.
INTODUCTION ABOUT
LIBRARY
Libraries range widely in size, up to millions
of items.
A library system is a central organization
created to manage and coordinate
operations and services in or between
different centers, buildings or libraries
branches and library patrons. They use
a library classification to organize their
volumes and nowadays also use
an Integrated library system - an enterprise
resource planning system for a library used
to track items owned, orders made, bills
paid, and patrons who have borrowed.
[47] Many counties, states and universities
have developed their own library systems.
For example, the London Public
Library in Canada has 16 branches, and
the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Libraries,
in Finland, has 63 libraries .Some countries,
such as Venezuela, have only one library
system for the whole country; the National
Library of Venezuela has 685 branches.
INTODUCTION ABOUT
LIBRARY
The history of libraries began with the first
efforts to organize collections of
documents.The first libraries consisted
of archives of the earliest form of writing—
the clay tablets in cuneiform
script discovered in Sumer, some dating
back to 2600 BC. Private or personal
libraries made up of written books appeared
in classical Greece in the 5th century BC. In
the 6th century, at the very close of
the Classical period, the great libraries of the
Mediterranean world remained those
of Constantinople and Alexandria.
INTODUCTION ABOUT
LIBRARY
The Fatimids (r. 909–1171) also possessed
many great libraries within their domains.
The historian Ibn Abi Tayyi’ describes their
palace library, which probably contained the
largest collection of literature on earth at the
time, as a "wonder of the world". Throughout
history, along with bloody massacres, the
destruction of libraries has been critical for
conquerors who wish to destroy every trace
of the vanquished community's recorded
memory. A prominent example of this can be
found in the Mongol massacre of the
Nizaris at Alamut in 1256 and the torching of
their library, "the fame of which", boasts the
conqueror Juwayni, "had spread throughout
the world".
The libraries of Timbuktu were established in
the fourteenth century and attracted
scholars from all over the world.
