Importance Of Library Essay

1. Public Library : Public libraries are social institutions offering services to various groups of people. They are also called People Libraries. Public libraries are, ”those which serve the population of a community for a nominal fee; they may serve the general public or special categories of users such as children of the armed forces, hospital patients, prisoners, workers and employees.” The aim of public library is to serve the general public or special categories of the public in the community concerned. It is basically a free service or charges a nominal fee for the services. A public library can play an important role in helping different sectors of the community Elderly, poor and handicapped person can also be served by it. A public

It means that library is the chief intellectual heritage and any formal education at any level can be obtained more efficiently and effectively with the help of a well-equipped library. An academic library is the one attached to an academic institution like School, College, University etc. assigned with the duty of imparting formal education to the students. All academic institutions are supposed to have rich libraries to feed the students, teachers, and research scholars in order to meet their day-to-day information requirements. It plays an important role in giving right direction to the cultural, political, social, scientific, and technological development of a nation. It helps in promoting the formal education for all round development of the students. An academic institution can be analogue with the teaching community as the head, students as the body and the library as the heart. Without heart, there cannot be a body and without body, one cannot think of a heart to function. Being the heart of academic institutions the role of libraries is pivotal. These libraries supplement the teaching and learning process and encourage the students and teachers to broaden their knowledge base. Academic libraries are considered as laboratories or workshops where the students go and spend hours together in going through the books, magazines and other reading materials which satisfy their urge

The first Indian Education Commissions was appointed by Lord Ripon in 1882 with William Hunter, a member of the executive council of Viceroy as its Chairman to inquire in to the position of education in British India. It recommended special grants for academic libraries, but the British Indian government approved no grants. The Calcutta University Commission9 appointed by the Government of India in 1917 under the chairmanship of Sir Michael Saddler has pointed out that the weakness of the existing higher education system is the extra ordinary unimportant part in it played by the library. Few colleges have good libraries. Even the best, that of the Presidency College is defective at many points. The Auxiliary Committee on Education appointed by the Simon Commissionl0 (appointed by the Government of India) in 1919 under the chairmanship of Sir Philip Hartog had reviewed the university education and recommended to maintain well equipped central library’s so as to enable the teachers to keep themselves up-to-date in their field of specialization. The University Education Commission (1948)11 clearly observed that teaching is a co-operative enterprise and teachers must have necessary tools for teaching purposes in the shape of libraries and laboratories. The