Library (institution)

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3

Other Government Libraries in the United States

Many other departments and agencies of the U.S. federal government maintain their own libraries. Some of the largest of these are administered by the Department of Defense for the various branches of the armed services. Each branch of the United States military also maintains libraries on its bases around the world to provide U.S. military personnel with technical information and leisure reading materials. The Department of State operates libraries (also called information resource centers) in many foreign countries as part of an effort to promote U.S. interests abroad. Other important federal libraries are maintained by the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice, the Department of Commerce, the National Weather Service, the Office of Management and Budget, the Patent and Trademark Office, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Smithsonian Institution also operates a variety of libraries in its various branches, which collectively maintain more than 1.2 million volumes covering subjects such as African art, Native American history, and space exploration.

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National Libraries in Canada

Canada’s national government maintains three main libraries in the national capital, Ottawa, Ontario. These are the National Library of Canada, the Library of Parliament, and the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information. In addition, the Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec acts as the legal copyright depository for publications in the province of Québec.

The National Library of Canada, established in 1953, provides facilities for scholarly research to the government and the public. The library’s collection numbers more than 16 million items covering a wide range of subjects. Most of the library’s collection deals with issues relating specifically to Canada, making it the world’s foremost center for research in Canadian studies. The library publishes the Canadian Union Catalog, a listing of its collections and of the holdings of other major Canadian academic, public, and special libraries. The National Library of Canada also coordinates networks with other libraries in the country through which they share collections, technology, resources, and staff expertise. In addition, the library publishes Canadiana, a monthly and annual bibliography of new publications about Canada.

The Library of Parliament, established in 1867, provides information, reference, and research services to the country’s lawmakers and their staff members, parliamentary committees, and various legislative associations and delegations. It also offers information about the Canadian Parliament to the general public. The library’s public information resources include reports on current events, legislative summaries, newspaper-clipping services, reading lists, and online databases.

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The Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information is a major research center for information in all areas of science, technology, engineering, and medicine. Established in 1916 as the library of the National Research Council of Canada, the institute now serves the Canadian government as well as the industrial, medical, and academic communities of Canada. In addition to its main catalog, the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information provides access to the catalog of the Canadian Agricultural Library. This catalog features books, reports, and conference proceedings on agricultural information around the world. The institute also publishes international research journals in printed and electronic formats.

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National Archives

The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government that selects, organizes, and preserves various public documents that it determines to be of enduring historical value. It also strives to make these materials easily accessible to the government and the public. The National Archives and Records Administration is located in Washington, D.C., and in College Park, Maryland. It preserves various treaties, laws, maps, charts, census data, presidential proclamations, executive orders, photographs, sound recordings, motion pictures, correspondence of government officials, computer data, and many other types of records. All of this amounts to a staggering amount of data, and the collection is steadily growing. In 1999 the National Archives held 4 billion pieces of paper; nearly 14 million still photographs and posters; more than 300,000 reels of motion-picture film; more than 5 million maps, charts, and architectural drawings; and more than 9 million aerial photographs. Among these documents are national treasures such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights. Fewer than 3 percent of the government’s records have enough lasting historical or legal significance to become a permanent part of the National Archives.

The National Archives and Records Administration also oversees several presidential libraries located throughout the country. Presidential libraries preserve and make available the papers, records, and other historical materials of individual United States presidents and their administrations. Most U.S. presidents since Herbert Hoover (president from 1929 to 1933) have been honored with their own presidential library, usually located in their home state. For example, the John F. Kennedy Library, located in Boston, Massachusetts, maintains more than 34 million manuscript pages (including 8.4 million pages of Kennedy’s own papers), as well as photographs, printed materials, films and videos, audio tapes, and many other materials dedicated to preserving the memory of Kennedy. Most presidential libraries also sponsor educational programs, special exhibitions, lecture series, and other events designed to serve the public. Other presidential libraries in the United States include the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, Ohio; the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa; the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York; the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri; the Eisenhower Center in Abilene, Kansas; the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas; the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California; the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan; the Jimmy Carter Library in Atlanta, Georgia; the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California; the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas; and the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The National Archives of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, selects, preserves, and makes available public and private records of historical significance to Canada and its citizens. The archives include government records, maps, photographs, private papers, architectural drawings, paintings, audio and visual materials, and computer data. The census records in the archives make the institution a primary resource for Canadians conducting genealogical research. In addition, the National Archives of Canada supports other research activities and sponsors exhibitions on Canadian history.

III

How Libraries Acquire Materials

Libraries must constantly revise and update their collections to ensure that the information they offer is reliable, up-to-date, and valued by their users. Because different types of libraries strive to satisfy different user needs, each library develops its own criteria for evaluating the quality of its collections. Using these evaluations, librarians can determine which areas of the collection most require additional resources.

National libraries generally try to ensure that they have at least one copy of every domestically published work as well as a representative selection of foreign works. University and school libraries measure the quality of their existing collections by assessing their ability to support teaching and research at their institutions. These libraries also typically measure the size of their collections or check lists of recommended materials to determine whether the library owns such documents. Public libraries usually judge the quality of their existing collections by determining how often users borrow certain materials.

Once librarians assess the quality of their existing collections, they must select and acquire new library materials. Most libraries can buy only a small fraction of the millions of books, periodicals, CD-ROMs, audio and video recordings, and other materials published every year. Large libraries may hire librarians who specialize in the selection of library materials, a process known as collection development. In smaller libraries, senior librarians and other staff members may share responsibilities for developing the library’s collection.

Unlike national libraries, which typically select all domestic works for their collections, university and school libraries generally select only those works judged by librarians and faculty members to have genuine literary or scholarly merit. Because public librarians must select materials to satisfy the demands of the general reading public, they base their selections almost entirely on readership, circulation, and anticipated demand rather than on the perceived quality of the work. The librarians who select materials for any type of library must balance the needs of their particular clientele with budgetary constraints, space limitations, and other considerations.

No one library can own everything needed to satisfy its clientele. Therefore, libraries increasingly emphasize access to materials rather than ownership of materials. For example, libraries may arrange to provide users with access to materials held by other libraries. This cooperation between institutions allows libraries to collectively offer much more comprehensive collections than any one library could offer by itself. Libraries also increasingly provide access to electronic versions of materials instead of stocking the physical materials on the library shelves.

Libraries acquire their materials from a variety of sources. The United States Government Printing Office provides libraries in the United States with materials published by the U.S. Congress and by various government departments and agencies. Many libraries—particularly special libraries with rare-book and historical collections—acquire a significant number of their materials as gifts from various organizations, foundations, and individuals. Large libraries often administer approval plans, in which booksellers select materials and send them to libraries in subject areas of interest. The libraries pay for the materials they want to add to their collections and return whatever they do not need. When libraries purchase their materials, they often negotiate discounts from publishers, book dealers, and others in order to stretch the library’s budget as far as possible.

At some point, all types of libraries must remove older, irrelevant, or infrequently used materials to make space for new acquisitions. This process is sometimes referred to as weeding the collection. Libraries with sufficient budgets may store the removed materials in warehouses or other facilities where they can be accessed on demand. Frequently, however, libraries donate their removed collections to other institutions or sell them in public book sales. In some cases, libraries must destroy these materials.

IV

Organization of Resources

Because libraries usually contain a vast amount of material, users might never find the information they need if this material were not carefully organized. For this reason librarians have developed systematic procedures to organize their collections in ways that provide users with convenient and logical access to materials.

Although no two libraries are organized in exactly the same way, nearly all libraries use some type of system to catalog, or index, their collections. In addition, libraries use similar systems to classify and arrange their materials on library shelves. For these reasons, library users require a basic understanding of the common types of catalogs and the principles of classification to easily find the information they need.

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