Library Collection

Having considered the sort of inquiries that may be posed in a library, we shall now consider retrieval-the process whereby data or document are found in the attempt to deal with the inquiries that have been posed. There are two related process: arranging for selected materials to be collected for use.
In the mind’s eye, libraries and their collections are almost aynonymous. One tends to visualize libraries as collections, with rows upon rows of shelves of books. Much of what you see in a library is its collection. The number of volumes remains the most prevalent indicator of how good a library is. Assembling and maintaining collections accounts for much of libraries’ budget, labor cost, and space needs.
Writings on library of collecting have, understandably, concentrated on procedural aspects of selecting material. The purpose of the library collection is generally discussed briefly, if at all, wiyh a vague phrase about how, for example, a university’s library collections “support the academic programs”. The library is often referred to as a center for the community, as the heart of a university, or as a the laboratory of the humanities, but studies of library use have concentrated heavily on surface phenomena, such as frequency of visit or loan statistics. There has been far less examination of how the use of library materials relates to learning, to research, and to the broader context of library service. What are people doing with library materials when they use them? How is the role of a collection related to other aspects of library service? How does the cultural context in which the library is the set affect the collection?

Richness and diversity

The range of objects that libraries and library-like institutions such as archives and museums collect is remarkable. Most obviously, large research libraries have truly massive collections of bools and journals.
Images are also assembled: photographs and slides, movies and videos, painting ang print, also often in millions. Sounds are collected: speeches, shongs, music, and language lessons are accumulated in libraries, language labs, museums, and schools. Easily overlooked are the often very extensive is likely to have an art gallery and local history museum. A large university is likely to have a herbarium, a rock collection, an historical or anthropological museum, skeletons, fossils, and much more besides.
We are concerned here with library collections, which although ordinarily thought of in terms of books and serials, actually contain a very broad range of materials: manuscripts, archives, photographs, recording, movies, and much else. Not only will particular collection include different sorts of objects, but some objects combine textual, visual, audio, and artifactual aspects
Library materials as evidence
One learns from the examination of various sorts of things. In order to learn, texts are read, numbers are tallied, objects ang images are inspected or listened to. In a significsnt sense library materials are used as evidence in learning-as the basis for understanding. One’s knowledge and opinions are affected by what one sees, reads, hears, or experiences. Texbooks and encyclopedias provide material for an introduction to a subject; literary texts and commentaries provide sources for the study language and literature; arrays of statistical data provide sources for calculations and inferences; statutes and law reports indicate the law; photographs show what people, places, and events looked like; citations and sources are verified; and so on.
In each case it is reasonable to view library materials as evidence, though without implying that what was read, viewed, listened to, or otherwise used was necessarily accurate, useful, or even pertinent to the user’s purposes. Nor need it be assumed that the user did (or should) believe or agree with what was read.