Public library

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A public library is a library which is accessible by the public and is generally funded from public sources (such as tax monies) and may be operated by civil servants.

Public libraries exist in most nations of the world and are often considered an essential part of having an educated and literate population. In addition to books and periodicals, most public libraries today have a wide array of other media including CDs, software, video tapes, and DVDs, as well as facilities to access the Internet. Public libraries may also provide other services, such as community meeting rooms, a children's storytime or after-school program, and space for homework help programs or other community services.

Public libraries are distinct from research libraries, school libraries, or other special libraries in that their mandate is to serve the public's information needs generally (rather than serve a particular school, institution, or research population). Public libraries typically are lending libraries, circulating book and other materials to the users; they also have non-circulating reference collections. Public libraries typically focus on popular materials such as popular fiction and videos, as well as educational and nonfiction materials of interest to the general public; in the larger cities, they are to some extent reference libraries as well. Public libraries also provide materials for children, including books, videos and other materials (both fiction and nonfiction), often housed in a special section. Public libraries may also provide services for other particular groups, such as large print or Braille materials, young adult literature and other materials for teenagers, or materials in other than the national language.

Librarians at most public libraries provide reference and research help to the general public, usually at a reference desk. Depending on the size of the library, there may be more than one desk; at some smaller libraries all transactions may occur at one desk, while large urban public libraries may employ subject-specialist librarians to sit at multiple reference or information desks to answer queries about particular topics. Often the children's section in a public library has its own reference desk.

Public libraries in some countries pay authors when their books are borrowed from libraries. These are known as Public Lending Right programs.

1 Origins of the public library as a social institution
- 1.1 United States of America
- 1.2 United Kingdom
2 See also
3 External links
- 3.1 UK library charities

[edit] Origins of the public library as a social institution

Many claims have been made for the title of "first public library" for various libraries in various countries, with at least some of the confusion arising from differing interpretations of what should be considered a true "public library". Difficulties in establishing what policies were in effect at different times in the history of particular libraries also adds to the confusion.

The first libraries open to the public were the collections of Greek and Latin scrolls which were available in the dry sections of the many buildings that made up the huge Roman baths of the Roman empire. However, they were not lending libraries.

The "halls of science" run by different Islamic sects in many cities of North Africa and the Middle East in the 9th century were open to the public. Some of them had written lending policies, but they were very restrictive. Most patrons were expected to consult the books in situ.

The later European university libraries were not open to the general public, but accessible by scholars,

A selection of significant claims made for early libraries operating in a way at least partly analogous to the modern public library is listed below by country and then by date.

[edit] United States of America

Image:Altona Library Hall.jpg

In his unconventional history The Tribes and the States William James Sidis claims the public library is an American invention and states that the first town library was established in Boston, Massachusetts in 1636.
The St. Phillips Church Parsonage Provincial Library, established in 1698 in Charleston, South Carolina
The Library Company of Philadelphia was founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin and a group of his friends (the Junto) as a means to settle arguments. The subscription library was born. A subscription library allowed individuals to buy "shares." The money raised from the sale of shares went into buying more books. A member or shareholder then had rights to use the library. The Library Company, which may have been the first truly public library (members could actually borrow books), is still in existence as a nonprofit, independent research library. [1]
A library founded in 1833 in Peterborough, New Hampshire [2]
The Boston Public Library [3]
The Franklin, Massachusetts public library [4]
Scoville Memorial Library in Salisbury, Connecticut, the first free public library in the United States, established in 1803 [5]
The New York Public Library in New York City, begun in 1849 and consolidated in 1901, one of the most important public libraries in the United States [6]
Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie donated the money for the building of thousands of Carnegie libraries in English-speaking countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

[edit] United Kingdom

In the early years of the seventeenth century many famous collegiate and town libraries — i.e., libraries under the guardianship of municipalities — were founded throughout the country. Norwich library established in 1608 (six years after the foundation of the Bodleian Library, and 145 years before the foundation of the British Museum) is said to be the first provincial town library under municipal control. However, similar claims are made for the Francis Trigge Chained Library of St. Wulfram's Church, Grantham, Lincolnshire which is said to pre-date Norwhich library, being founded in 1598 by the rector of nearby Welbourne. The other earliest popular town libraries are those of Ipswich (1612), Bristol (founded in 1613 and opened in 1615), and Leicester (1632).

Other antecedents are claimed: In Bristol, an early public library was that of the Kalendars or Kalendaries, a brotherhood of clergy and laity who were attached to the Church of All-Hallowen or All Saints. Records show that in 1464, provision was made for a library to be erected in the house of the Kalendars, and reference is made to a deed of that date by which it was "appointed that all who wish to enter for the sake of instruction shall have ‘free access and recess’ at certain times".

The foundation of the modern public library system in the UK is the Public Libraries Act 1850, although the municipalities of Warrington and Salford established libraries in their museums, under the terms of the Museums Act of 1845. Norwich lays claims to being the first municipality to adopt the Public Libraries Act 1850, but theirs was the eleventh library to open, in 1857, being the eleventh in the country after Winchester, Manchester, Liverpool, Bolton, Kidderminster, Cambridge, Birkenhead and Sheffield.