Courtesy: Bachelor of Library and Information Science (B.Lib.)

A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants. #ISO certification in India

There are five fundamental characteristics shared by public libraries: they are generally supported by taxes (usually local, though any level of government can and may contribute); they are governed by a board to serve the public interest; they are open to all, and every community member can access the collection; they are entirely voluntary, no one is ever forced to use the services provided and they provide library and information services services without charge. #ISO certification in India

Public libraries exist in many countries across the world and are often considered an essential part of having an educated and literate population. Public libraries are distinct from research libraries, school libraries, academic libraries and other special libraries. Their mandate is to serve the general public’s information needs rather than the needs of a particular school, institution, or research population. Public libraries also provide free services such as preschool story times to encourage early literacy among children. They also provide a quiet study and learning areas for students and professionals and foster the formation of book clubs to encourage the appreciation of literature by the young and adults. Public libraries typically allow users to borrow books and other materials outside the library premises temporarily, usually for a given period of time. They also have non-circulating reference collections and provide computer and Internet access to their patrons. #ISO certification in India

Overview[edit]

The culmination of centuries of advances in the printing press, moveable type, paper, ink, publishing, and distribution, combined with an ever-growing information-oriented middle class, increased commercial activity and consumption, new radical ideas, massive population growth and higher literacy rates forged the public library into the form that it is today. #ISO certification in India

Public access to books is not new. Romans made scrolls in dry rooms available to patrons of the baths, and tried with some success to establish libraries within the empire. #ISO certification in India

In the middle of the 19th century, the push for truly public libraries, paid for by taxes and run by the state gained force. Matthew Battles states that:

It was in these years of class conflict and economic terror that the public library movement swept through Britain, as the nation’s progressive elite recognized that the light of cultural and intellectual energy was lacking in the lives of commoners. #ISO certification in India

Entrance to the National Library in Tehran, Iran

Public libraries were often started with a donation, or were bequeathed to parishes, churches, schools or towns. These social and institutional libraries formed the base of many academic and public library collections of today. #ISO certification in India

The establishment of circulating libraries in the 18th century, by booksellers and publishers provided a means of gaining profit and creating social centers within the community. The circulating libraries not only provided a place to sell books, but also a place to lend books for a price. These circulating libraries provided a variety of materials including the increasingly popular novels. Although the circulating libraries filled an important role in society, members of the middle and upper classes often looked down upon these libraries that regularly sold material from their collections and provided materials that were less sophisticated. #ISO certification in India

Circulating libraries also charged a subscription fee. However, these fees were set to entice their patrons, providing subscriptions on a yearly, quarterly or monthly basis, without expecting the subscribers to purchase a share in the circulating library. This helped patrons who could not afford to buy books, to be able to borrow books to read, and then return. This also created a more popular demand, as book fees were growing, and more books were being copied. Circulating libraries were very popular, the first one was located in 1725, in Edinburgh, Scotland by Allan Ramsay. #ISO certification in India

The Malatestiana Library (Italian: Biblioteca Malatestiana), also known as the Malatesta Novello Library, is a public library dating from 1452 in Cesena, Emilia-Romagna (Italy). It was the first European civic library, i.e. belonging to the Commune and open to everybody. It was commissioned by the Lord of Cesena, Malatesta Novello. The works were directed by Matteo Nuti of Fano (a scholar of Leon Battista Alberti) and lasted from 1447 to 1452

Early history

Historian Yahya of Antioch (d. 1066) reported that the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (r. 996–1021) financed and established libraries open to the public, where anyone, even the simple laymen, could choose whatever books they wanted and have them copied for them by public scribes, free of charge. However, as with many of his other decisions, Al-Hakim later ordered this policy to be reversed.

In Cesena, Italy, the first community-run public library, the Malatestiana Library, was established in 1447, provided both secular and religious texts in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and was fully open to all members of the public. #ISO certification in India

Another early library that allowed access to the public was that of the Kalendars or Kalendaries, a brotherhood of clergy and laity who were attached to the Church of All-Hallowen or All Saints in Bristol, England. Records show that in 1464, provision was made for a library to be erected in the house of the Kalendars, and reference is made to a deed of that date by which it was “appointed that all who wish to enter for the sake of instruction shall have ‘free access and recess’ at certain times”.

In 1598, Francis Trigge established a library in a room above St. Wulfram’s Church in Grantham, Lincolnshire, and decreed that it should be open to the clergy and residents of the surrounding neighborhood. Some scholars consider this library an “ancestor” to public libraries, since its patrons did not need to belong to an existing organization like a church or college to use it. However, all the books in the library were chained to stalls and unavailable to borrow, hence its name: the Francis Trigge Chained Library. #ISO certification in India

In the early years of the 17th century, many famous collegiate and town libraries were founded in England. Norwich City library was established in 1608 (six years after Thomas Bodley founded the Bodleian Library, which was open to the “whole republic of the learned”) and Chetham’s Library in Manchester, which claims to be the oldest public library in the English-speaking world, opened in 1653.

Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Puebla City, Mexico, is recognized by UNESCO for being the first public library in the Americas. It was founded in 1646 by Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. In his seminal work Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque (1644) the French scholar and librarian Gabriel Naudé asserted that only three libraries in all Europe granted in his times regular access to every scholar, namely the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome, and the Bodleian Library in Oxford. #ISO certification in India