StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...

History of the Library - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
If the urge towards education as a lifelong project is to become more general, the child must develop in the school library, attitudes, habits, and knowledge of intellectual resources which will lead him to use public libraries and build up his own.
History has recorded man's love of libraries since the days of antiquity and the burning of the library at Alexandria…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER97.1% of users find it useful
History of the Library
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "History of the Library"

Download file to see previous pages

Though the papyrus scrolls and clay tablets of Alexandria have been replaced by optical disks and flash cards, the library has remained at the center of academic endeavors. The modern school library media center remains critical to our need to have a central repository for knowledge that is available to everyone. When John Harvard gave his collection of books to the fledgling university, it was called a school library. Over the coming centuries the library would experience an evolution of the ways that information is stored and retrieved.

During the 1920s, the National Education Association (NEA) enacted school library standards which paved the way for the storage of non-print media and libraries became known as instructional media centers (Wiegand, 2007, p.58) Today artifacts, digital media, and printed material of all types are networked together with the aid of massive databases. Digital electronics has made the storage and retrieval process faster, more compact, and less costly than ever before. Today the school library is more aptly known as the school library media center.

Much of the evolution and restructuring of the school library media center has come as a result made by the demands to store and retrieve information in an environment of rapid technological change. After World War II film strips began to be added as they came to be viewed as items worthy of legitimate academic study. The invention of microfiche (a system of greatly reducing photo copies of documents) in 1961 started a major revolution in the media centers' long-term storage strategy (Raider, 2006).

The 1969 Standards for School Media Programs published by the NEA united librarians and audio-visual specialists under the terminology of "library media program and library media specialist" (School libraries, 2008). The 1969 standards made recommendations regarding the new media of "8mm films, 16mm films, tapes and discs, slides, graphic materials, globes, maps, microforms, and transparencies (Mariea, 1998, p.182). The standards additionally defined storage space and environmental requirements.

The age of the Internet has added additional information available as digital media sources are catalogued in massive databases.The ability to digitize magazines, newspapers, books, and journals has made the information available at any school library media center almost unlimited. This has required another tier of media management as databases are responsible for cataloguing and maintaining archival issues of periodicals. Companies such as EBSCO, Thomson-Gale, and JSTOR store past issues of periodicals that are available as a subscription service.

These databases, that can be accessed via the Internet, have made almost all recent periodicals, and many books, available to library patrons in digital format. Today's post-modern school library media center is a virtual library that makes vast amounts of information available almost anywhere in the world. The ability to store information in a compressed form has been accomplished by using a wide variety of media formats. Information can be stored on paper, film, plastic, and solid state electronics.

This has presented the challenge of creating an environment

...Download file to see next pages Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“History of the Library Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1503494-history-of-the-library
(History of the Library Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 Words)
https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1503494-history-of-the-library.
“History of the Library Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1503494-history-of-the-library.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF History of the Library

A Rose for Emily and Rappaccinis Daughter

Short Story Analysis Name University Short Story Analysis I have chosen two works by William Faulkner and Nathaniel Hawthorne respectively that fall under the genre of short stories.... A Rose for Emily and Rappaccini's Daughter are two works that contain a tragic setting where the main characters are met by death towards the end of the book....
10 Pages (2500 words) Research Paper

Lost Treasures Issues

One example of this is the destruction of the library in Alexandria where it is believed, thousands upon thousands of ancient writings were destroyed.... One example of this is the destruction of the library in Alexandria where it is believed, thousands upon thousands of ancient writings were destroyed.... Another reason was supposedly the conversion of the library into a Christian Church during Theophilus' reign of Alexandria.... Until today, unfortunately, there are just speculations based on existing literary works that refer to the library and the reason why it was destroyed....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Literary Perspectives on New York City History

New York's history, especially through the 19th century, is an interesting one.... hellip; from within and outside the United States, with each rendering different versions of the city's history.... Foster and William Dean Howells with a view to presenting an overview of the wide literary perspectives on New York's history....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Conspectus and Collection Mapping

At present, books are not the only things that are inside the library, there are things that are new to us such as computer sets, multi-media presentations and the like that really disrupt and adds more responsibility to a librarian to set-up the library in a manner that is accepted by both of the user and administrator of the library.... The collection of the library should develop a certain program in order to guide the people who are utilizing the library....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

LITERARY HISTORY, INTERPRETATION, & ANALYSIS

Othering is used to establish a binary opposition between the Self and the Other, so as to establish and maintain the power of the Self by stigmatizing and isolating the Other.... Othering stem from all forms of differences, such as racial, cultural, religious, socioeconomic, and… Otherness is a significant concept in postcolonial studies as the imperial authority labels the colonized as the Others in order to exercise power over them....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Literary Analysis of Short Story

On the other hand, Dee considers traditions to have no significance in everyday use, since history corrupts them.... Mama is portrayed as one of the important characters in Everyday Use.... n many instances in the story, she helps to bring out the numerous themes and other literary aspects....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Library Policy Manual

The CDP will describe in detail the collection components including strengths and weaknesses as well as provide clear guidelines for the library employees.... The design layout will enable easy movement, access, and creation of a conducive environment within the library premises.... At the same time, the guidelines provided should be modifiable in line with the library's collection needs.... Consequently, the collection development policy should be placed on the World Wide Web as a resource for the library's patrons and source of reference for other libraries....
13 Pages (3250 words) Assignment

History of King Library

The King Café is a popular spot that is ever busy with activities involving selling coffee and other fast foods to the occupants of the library.... the library currently hosts various sections including the Center for Information Management, Center for Digital Scholarships, Walter Havighurst Special Collections, Government Information, and Law Collection.... the library also offers sections for Technical Services, Library Systems, Conservation Lab, Access Services and administrative offices....
6 Pages (1500 words) Term Paper
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us