Libraries

Library

The term library is used both literally and metaphorically. The literal meaning of "library" is a kind of institution in societies (a kind of secondary information system), which provide certain functions related to the identification, selection, collecting, indexing, organization and intermediating of publications and information for a more or less specified purpose (such as education, research, professional activities and general education). The metaphorical use of the term library includes software libraries, kinds of collected, multi-volume works among other things.

Libraries may, together with archives, museums and certain databases, be regarded a kind of memory institution.

Libraries have a long history in human cultures. The best way to understand the concept of library and its cultural importance is probably to study library history, which is an important subdiscipline within Library and Information Science (LIS) (cf., Wiegand & Davis, 1994).

Libraries may be classified in different ways. There are private libraries, state libraries and municipal libraries. There are academic libraries (sometimes termed "research libraries"), "national libraries", "public libraries" and "company libraries". There are general libraries covering all fields of knowledge and special libraries covering particular fields such as law, medicine and music.

Libraries may fulfill many different functions. Two important metaphors of libraries are "storehouses" and "workshops" or laboratories (cf., Cole, 1979; Lipscomb, 2001).

Andersson & Skot-Hansen (1994) describe the functions of public libraries as cultural centers, knowledge centers, information centers and social centers.

The development of digital media challenges in many ways the role of libraries. Well established relations between, for example, archives, publishers, online databases and libraries must be reconsidered. Many publishers of scientific journals tend to establish what they term "digital libraries". It has also been claimed that Google is a major challenge to the academic library. Similar challenges are facing public libraries:

Audunson (1996, p. 137) writes: "The traditional basis of public librarianship is now being challenged. Turbulence and challenges to traditional ways of doing things characterize the entire public sector, but in many ways, the questions which face libraries are more fundamental than those faced by other national and local public organizations...no one questions the idea that we need schools.......Libraries face another kind of debate. Many foresee a future in which each person will be able to access any database from his own desk and use or print relevant documents. This raises far more fundamental questions for libraries".

What are the relations between the concept "library" and research problems within LIS? It should be recognized that libraries may be studied from the points of view of many different disciplines such as cultural history, law, management, computer science etc. Such a mixture does not in itself provide a "library science". The term LIS (or Library Science) presupposes a specific study or perspective of libraries that is not already within the fields of other disciplines (see also interdisciplinarity and Tengström, 1993). If such a perspective is not made clear, for example, in the education, people may not develop an identity as professionals within their own field. Lørring (2004) argues that such an identity should be based by considering knowledge organization the core issue of the field.

Within large research subfields of LIS, such as information retrieval, information seeking and bibliometrics seems the concept of a library to be of no interest at all or only very indirectly of interest. Within other subfields of LIS more related to cultural studies and library management, the concept is more important.

It is not self-evident that the concept of libraries is important for LIS. In medicine, for example, doctors are not primarily studying hospitals, but illnesses. In the same way may libraries be a less important concept compared to, for example, literatures and fields of knowledge (kinds of organized knowledge).

"SOU 2003:129" is an official report about the future role of the Swedish national library which also points to the need for research and personnel educated within LIS (including PhDs). This report is one document among others which provide a vision of the relation between LIS as a field of research on the one hand and on the other hand library institutions and the concept of a library.

The role of libraries in LIS may be studied from systemic perspectives in relation to professional, scientific and cultural communication with the aim of optimizing such processes. Orr (1977) is an early attempt to use systems theory. The UNISIST model of information dissemination is another model with potentials for developing research programs in which the role of libraries is investigated from a broader perspective.

Literature:

Andersson, M. & Skot-Hansen, D. (1994). Det lokale bibliotek - afvikling eller udvikling. København: Danmarks Biblioteksskole og Udviklingscenteret for folkeoplysning og voksenundervisning.

Audunson, R. (1966). Comparing Change Processes in Public Libraries - an Institutional Perspective. Pp. 135-167 IN: Olaisen, Johan; Erland Munch-Petersen and Patrick Wilson (eds.): Information Science. From the Development of the Discipline to Social Interaction. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press.

Augst, T. & Wiegand, W. (Eds.). (2003). Libraries as Agencies of Culture. Madison, WI.: University of Wisconsin Press.

Brophy, P. (2005). The Academic Library . 2Rev e. London: Facet Publishing.

Budd, J. (2005). The changing academic library; operations, cultures, environments. Chicago : Association of College and Research Libraries.

Butler, P. (1952). The Cultural Function of the Library. Library Quarterly, 22, 79-91.

Cole, J. Y. (1979). Storehouses and workshops: American libraries and the uses of knowledge. In: Oleson A, Voss J, eds. The organization of knowledge in modern America, 1860–1920. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 372.

Foskett, D. J. (1984). Pathways for Communication: Books and Libraries in the Information Age. London: Clive Bingley.

Lipscomb, C. E. (2001). The library as laboratory. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 89(1), 79–80. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=31709

Lørring, Leif (2004). Behind the curriculum of library and information studies. Models for didactical curriculum reflections. World Library and Information Congress: 70th IFLA General Conference and Council 22-27 August 2004 Buenos Aires, Argentina. http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/papers/064e-Lorring.pdf

Matthews, A. J. (Ed.). (1988). Rethinking the Library in the Information Age: A Summary of Issues in Library Research. Washington, DC: Office of Library Programs, Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

Maxwell, N. K. (2006). Sacred Stacks: The Higher Purpose of Libraries And Librarianship. Chicago: American Library Association.

Mäntykangas, A. (1998). Biblioteket som metafor? Human IT, 2(2), 50-61.http://www.hb.se/bhs/ith/2-98/am.htm

Mäntykangas, A. (1999). What is a library? confronting the future. IN: New fields for Research in the 21st Century: Proceedings of the 3rd British-Nordic Conference on Library and Information Studies. 12-14 April 1999, Borås, Sweden / Ed. by Maj Klasson, Brendan Loghridge and Staffan Lööf. Borås: Institutionen för Biblioteks- och Informationsvetenskap, Högskolan i Borås.

Nelles, P. (1997). The library as an instrument of discovery: Gabriel Naudé and the uses of history. IN: Kelly, D. R. (Ed.). History and the disciplines: The reclassification of knowledge in early modern Europe. Rochester, New York: The University of Rochester Press. (Pp. 41-57).

Orr, J. M. (1977). Libraries as com munication systems. Westport, Conn. & London: Greenwood Press. (Contributions in librarianship and information science No. 17).

SOU 2003:129. KB ett nav i kunskapssamhället.[The Royal Library in Stockholm, a nail in the knowledge society]. SOU 2003:129. Click for full-text: Kapitel 1-5: 1-5 (pdf 1,0 MB); Kapitel 6-13+appendixes: 6-13 (pdf 1,4 MB)

Tengström, E. (1993). Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskapen - ett fler- eller tvärvetenskapligt område? Svensk Biblioteksforskning(1), 9-20.

Usherwood, B.; Wilson, K. & Bryson, J. (2005). Relevant repositories of public knowledge? Libraries, museums and archives in ‘the information age’. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 37(2), 89-98.

Wiegand, W. A. & Davis, D. G. (eds.). (1994). Encyclopedia of Library History. New York & London: Garland Publ., Inc.

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 06-03-2007

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