LIBRARY SCIENCE

the principles and practices of library operation and administration, and their study. Libraries have existed since ancient times, but only in the second half of the 19th century did library science emerge as a separate field of study. With the knowledge explosion in the 20th century, it was gradually subsumed under the more general field of information science (q.v.). By the second half of the 19th century, Western countries had experienced such a proliferation of books of all sorts that the nature of the librarian's work was radically altered; being well-read was no longer a sufficient characteristic for the post. The librarian needed some means of easy and rapid identification as well as strong organizational and administrative skills, and the necessity for specialized training soon became clear. One of the earliest pioneers in library training in the United States was Melvil Dewey (q.v.), who established the first training program for librarians in 1887. These training programs in the United States evolved into graduate programs in library education accredited by the American Library Association (ALA; founded 1876). In the 20th century, advances in the means of collecting, organizing, and retrieving information changed the focus of libraries, enabling a great variety of institutions and organizations, as well as individuals, to conduct their own searches for information without the involvement of a library or library staff. As a result, universities began to offer combined graduate programs in library science and information science. These programs usually provide a master's degree and may provide more advanced degrees, including doctorates. Particulars of admission and course requirements vary from school to school. In the United States and Canada, the appropriateness of graduate programs in library and information science in preparing students to become professional librarians is still ensured by accreditation by the ALA. Increasingly, however, graduates of these programs are finding themselves qualified for a variety of professional positions in other parts of the information industry. In many countries the furtherance of librarianship and library systems is promoted by national and regional library associations. The Chicago-based ALA, for example, in addition to its promotion of library service and librarianship, has an extensive publishing program and holds annual national conferences. Professional associations of a similar nature exist throughout the world. The library operation Training and library management Throughout the centuries, librarians have preserved books and records from the hazards of war, fire, and flood, and it is no idle boast to say that they have played a large part in maintaining the cultural heritage of their countries. Although the traditional librarian acted primarily as a keeper of records, the concept of an active service of advice and information eventually appeared as a legitimate extension of the role of custodian. The rise of scientific and industrial research and the establishment of public libraries in the 19th century led to the greatly increased emphasis on the subject approach and the role of systematic cataloging and classification in addition to the accepted function of building the collection and the consequent need for expert knowledge of bibliography, both systematic and analytic. In the industrial library in particular, the information officer was almost entirely concerned with the information contained on documents and was indifferent to their form; in this scheme a scrap of paper recording an important telephone call would have more significance than an incunabulum (a book printed before 1501). The proliferation of different forms of record eventually led to a much wider view of information storage and retrieval methods, often requiring the intervention of subject specialists who understood the work of their specialist colleagues. The professional librarian Now sometimes known as information specialists, librarians often specialize in certain areas. Their professional skills range from those of the archivist, who is concerned with records management, records appraisal, accessioning and arrangement, archival buildings and storage facilities, preservation and rehabilitation, and reference services (including exhibition and publication), to those of the information scientist, who is concerned with research on the nature of information itself and the process of information flow and transfer between individuals and communities. The various branches of the information profession share many objectives, practices, and skills. Each branch works to make the records of human progress readily available, and the contribution of each to society can only suffer from the lack of integration into a larger whole. The personnel requirements of the profession include several categories, based on various kinds of specialist knowledge and skills. These include a knowledge of the nature of documents and their role in collection building, skills in the organization of knowledge through cataloging and classification, an ability to analyze and survey needs and to disseminate information in response to and in advance of inquiries, and, often, a high level of computer literacy. Support personnel are needed to maintain the equipment, both hardware and software, and clerks, technicians, and stewards also are essential. Types of libraries Library services available throughout the world vary so much in detail from country to country that it is difficult to present anything but the most general picture of their activities. Nevertheless, they follow a broad but discernible pattern that has evolved over the years. National libraries In most countries there is a national or state library or a group of libraries maintained by national resources, usually bearing responsibility for publishing a national bibliography and for maintaining a national bibliographical information centre. National libraries strive principally to collect and to preserve the nation's literature, though they try to be as international in the range of their collections as possible. Most national libraries receive, by legal right (known in English as legal, or copyright, deposit), one free copy of each book and periodical printed in the country. Certain other libraries throughout the world share this privilege, though many of them receive their legal deposit only by requesting it. The Bibliothque Nationale in Paris, the British Library in London, and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., are among the most famous and most important national libraries in the Western world. Their importance springs from the quality, size, and range of their collections, which are comprehensive in scope, and from their attempts to maintain their comprehensiveness. They achieve the latter quality with diminishing success in view of the vastly increased number of publications that daily appear throughout the world, the failure of publishers to provide legal-deposit copies, and the difficulty of ensuring adequate representation of publications issued in the developing countries.