Public Library Collections Research Articles

Grammatical works in Arabic, Turkish and Persian in manuscript collections of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Goal: To present grammatical works in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian that were created, copied, inherited, and used as compulsory textbook literature in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the 16th to the 19th centuries. For this purpose, research was conducted in the manuscript collections of public libraries, archives, and institutes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Approach/methodology: Using the method of analysis and comparison of data collected by direct inspection of manuscript works, with the use of references and information about manuscripts contained in the catalogs of the collections, the selection of materials and the selection of reference works for analysis were carried out. Results: Show and valorize the modalities and scope of production and reception of manuscript grammatical works and their practical use in given contexts. We will pay special attention to the grammars written by Bosniak authors in oriental languages and their contribution to the development of the grammatical tradition in Bosnia. Originality/value: Bearing in mind the documentary character of the manuscripts as first-class historical sources, the research, analysis, and conclusions reached will not only represent a contribution to the study of linguistic history in Bosnia but also provide an incentive for further research in that direction.

Documenting ordinary stories: Local studies collections in public libraries

Documenting ordinary stories: Local studies collections in public libraries

Urban Public Libraries in the 1980s: Evolving Library Services for an Information Society

ABSTRACT This qualitative interview study with retired staff from urban public libraries collects data about employees’ perceptions of how these institutions changed during the 1980s. Participants’ memories of their communities, budgets, staffing, new technology, security measures, services, programming, outreach, and work with job-seekers and the unhoused are compared with library literature and newspaper coverage from the decade. As the U.S. shifted from an industrial society of large workplaces linking whole communities toward an “information society” with a more heterogenous workforce divided by educational attainment, urban public library workforces, target audiences, collections, and programming both adapted to and mirrored these changes.

Applying a Big History Analogy to Facilitate Information Sharing

Using analogies we generalize Tyler Volk’s combogenesis concept. A pedagogical application is a narrative that allows us to include some milestones of mathematics and physics in Big History courses. Applying the concept to books and book collections we suggest a philanthropic idea. This simple and potentially powerful application mixes low and high technology: using online bookstores, we propose the reproduction of personal book and video collections in public libraries. We give an example, at Simón Bolívar University in Venezuela, where this has already happened. We finish by proposing to use this idea to create a Big History book and video collection that could be donated to educational institutions around the world where a Big History course could be taught remotely.

Russian Publishing Abroad: The New York Public Library Collections in the Longer View

ABSTRACT From the early years of its existence the New York Public Library has systematically acquired Russian titles published outside of Russia. They first included works by Russian authors escaping czarist censorship but soon gave way to publications by authors who could not freely publish their works in the Soviet Union. Russian and other publishers operating outside of Russia/Soviet Union played a vital role in making these works available to a broader public.

Evaluation of urban ecological livability and obstacle factor diagnosis from a synergistic perspective: A case study of Zhangjiajie City, China.

The construction of ecological livability plays a crucial role in achieving ecological civilization. During economic development, conflicts between urban populations, resources, and the environment have become increasingly prominent. Although China's efforts in building ecological livability have made certain achievements, they are still in the early stages, making research in this area very necessary. This study aims to establish an indicator system for the level of ecological livability construction from four aspects: ecology, society, residents' living conditions, and economy. Based on panel data from 2008 to 2021, the entropy-TOPSIS model was used to evaluate the level of ecological livability construction in Zhangjiajie City. Additionally, the coupling coordination degree model was employed to study the correlation and coordination among different indicators within the system. Furthermore, the obstacle degree model was introduced to explore the main factors affecting the improvement of ecological livability construction levels. The results show that, over the fourteen-year period, the proximity of Zhangjiajie City's ecological livability construction level decreased from 0.2712 in 2008 to 0.2547 in 2010, then rose to 0.7686 in 2021, reaching a medium coordination level, with the constraining effects among the ecological livability systems weakening. The average wage of employees, the proportion of social security and employment expenditure to fiscal expenditure, the per capita total postal and telecommunications business volume, the per capita number of public library collections, and the proportion of education expenditure to fiscal expenditure have become the main influencing factors of Zhangjiajie City's ecological livability construction level.

Impact Factors for the Quality of Education -Evidence from the Enrollment Ratio of First Tier Universities

Huge differences in education levels can lead to a Matthew Effect on regional economic growth, so China has introduced many policies to promote the balanced development of education levels in various regions. A large number of researchers have investigated and researched the education level of each province from various aspects, However, there is still a research gap in the study of the enrollment ratio of first tier universities as an indicator of the education level. Therefore, this paper investigates the influencing factors on the rate of one college entrance examination in 2020 by collecting data on the enrollment ratio of first tier universities in each province, education expenditure, GDP per capital, disposable income per capital, public library collection per capital, student-teacher ratio of general high schools, and urban/rural population ratio, and carrying out correlation analyses on the data. It was found that all the research variables, except education expenditure, had a highly significant effect on the enrollment ratio of first tier universities when they were used as a single variable. And when multiple linear regressions were conducted, education expenditure had a significant negative effect on the enrollment ratio of first tier universities.It is recommended that while allocating regional education spending rationally, we should actively deploy economic and urban-rural development policies to boost peoples disposable income, strengthen teachers in each region, and promote the balance of education resources in each region.

Climate Change Considerations in Public Library Collection Development

Climate change is one of the biggest threats to our continued existence. While resources and research about climate change are readily available, what do public libraries need to be doing, as one of the last free public spaces, to bridge the gap between complex information and community action? This extended abstract, based on a larger research paper, explores the various ways public libraries can be active members of their communities and promote conversations about climate change with the specific actions of their collection development. Through an in-depth literature search, several challenges are identified that act as barriers to creating cohesive, inclusive, and informative climate change-oriented collections. These barriers include eco-anxiety, particularly among children and young adults, environmental literacy, and climate change denial materials. Considering these challenges, recommendations are provided to overcome these obstacles. As the need for understanding and action becomes more dire, library policies and collection development strategies need to reflect those needs.

Evaluasi Pemanfaatan Koleksi Anak di Dinas Perpustakaan dan Kearsipan Kabupaten Pidie

Collection evaluation completes the cycle of a collection development process in a library. This activity generates data including how useful it is to provide collections for certain groups such as children. There is no debate that many benefits of reading books for children include developing language skills and creative thinking. Therefore, the availability of access to collections and suitability for children's needs are important to consider in collection management. This paper evaluates the use of the children's collection held at the Pidie District Public Library. The aim is to assess the use of children’s collections by elementary school students who visited the public library in Pidie district. Fiction collection circulations were analysed based on its genre. The method used is descriptive with a qualitative approach. Data obtained through circulation statistic, interview and observation.The result of research based on usage statistics from November 2021 to Oktober 2022 showed that total usage of children collections were 672 books per year and fiction usage collection for 456 times. The most frequent- used of fiction collection was fairytale, followed by the storybooks, short stories, poetry, novels and folklore. Students can borrow only 2 to 3 title of the books within a week. Students really appreciate the availability of children's collections in public libraries due to the limitation of their school libraries’ collections. Nevertheless, students suggest that public library should develop the variety of fiction collections. Holdings of fiction collections only 193 titles or 470 copies from total holdings 247 titles or 730 copies of children collections. Therefore, this result can assist the Pidie Regent Public Library to manage children collection development decisions in future

The Influential Factors of the Habitat Quality of the Red-crowned Crane: A Case Study of Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, China

In order to effectively protect the habitat of cranes, this study constructs an indicator evaluation system based on the ecology–economy–society complex system and adopts the comprehensive “entropy weight method and analytic hierarchy process” evaluation model and coupled coordination model to scientifically measure the degree of coordinated development of the EES system in Yancheng. Further, a negative binomial regression model based on LASSO was used to analyze the key factors affecting the habitat quality of red-crowned cranes, and a support vector regression model was used to predict the population size of the cranes. The results show that the degree of the coordinated development of the EES system exhibited a fluctuating upward phenomenon, and the population size of the cranes also had a similar evolutionary trend, which indicates that the interaction between the two was significant and that the degree of the coordinated development of the system had a positive impact on the quality of the habitat of the cranes. Three types of ecological indicators (normalized difference vegetation index, annual precipitation, and soil erosion area) and three types of social indicators (natural growth rate, rural Engel coefficient, and public library collection) are the key factors affecting the population size of the cranes. The prediction results of the support vector regression model showed that the population of the cranes showed a fluctuating upward trend during the prediction interval, with a maximum of 952 cranes and an overall growth rate of 69.70%. The population size of the cranes is related to human social activities and the surrounding ecological environment, and the main reason for the decline in the population size of the cranes is the destruction of the local vegetation cover by the rapidly growing population and frequent human activities. Therefore, to improve the habitat quality of the cranes, local government departments need to strengthen the publicity of wildlife conservation, reduce agricultural land reclamation and pesticide pollution, and promote the coordinated development of the EES system in the Yancheng area.

Changes in the Usage Pattern of Public Library Collections during the COVID Pandemic

The aim of the research was to examine changes in the usage patterns of public library collections during the COVID pandemic. Usage data for e-loans (e-books and e-audio books) and physical loans from two library networks in Sydney (Australia) for 2019–2021 was analyzed. While the use of physical collections dropped to less than half, the use of electronic collections increased by almost as much. E-loans peaked, and physical loans plummeted during lockdowns. However, the increase of e-loans was very small in terms of absolute volume (about a 44 k increase) compared to the decline in physical loans (about half a million decrease), and the use of physical collections did not reach pre-pandemic levels during the period studied. The analysis of subjects and genres of loaned items indicates that users were generally keen to continue reading the sorts of material they had been reading prior to the pandemic, even if this meant switching format, although there were some changes in genre and subject preferences during the lockdowns, which might have been influenced by the circumstances of the individual users. Readers appeared to show particular interest in various nonfiction topics in the initial lockdown (early 2020), with more practical considerations holding sway at this stage of the pandemic, whereas, by the time of the second lockdown (mid-2021), these considerations had been resolved to some extent, and been overtaken by a more “escapist,” or at least a more recreational, attitude on the part of the average user.

Book Review: The Weeding Handbook: A Shelf-by-Shelf Guide, Second Edition

Rebecca Vnuk’s new and updated edition of The Weeding Handbook is a thoughtfully written book that can spark a lot of creative thinking as well as assist with careful planning of weeding projects, large and small. Weeding a library’s collection can often cause tension and sometimes high anxiety for many who work in and manage libraries. Vnuk’s experience managing public library collections and extensive background in book reviewing, consulting, and training makes her a librarian with considerable understanding of the difficult issues that surround weeding of collections. Vnuk’s second edition of The Weeding Handbook is a very useful book to read for building confidence around the decision-making involved in weeding collections. Vnuk writes, “A library is an ever-changing organism. Weeding helps a library thrive” (XV). This statement drives the narrative of the book, and it is something that is always important to remember when one is stuck in the weeding trenches and feeling indecisive and anxious on the decision processes. While Vnuk’s new edition of the handbook may in part resemble her first edition, published in 2015, this book feels refreshed, with recently authored suggested readings. Many sections of the book include short and original weeding thoughts and ruminations from librarians across many parts of the country from an assortment of library types and sizes.

A case study of the impact of regional knowledge services and management on regional economic development

Background. Knowledge can give an important contribution to local economic development, but the correlation between library activities and local economic development has not been clarified yet. The purpose of this investigation is to discuss the correlations between library output measures and regional economic measures.Methodology. The raw data obtained via the website of the National Bureau of Statistics of China have been analyzed by correlation coefficient calculations and multivariate regressions. Results and discussion. It was found that there are significant positive correlations between the data of the regional public libraries such as the collections of public libraries owned per person, the total number of circulation of public libraries, the Number of Seats of Reading Room in Public Libraries, the Floor Space of Buildings of Public Libraries Owned per 10000 Population, the Number of Lectures in Public Libraries and the data of their economic development. Linear relationships between library activities and the gross regional product of the five provinces in China and one of China’s direct-controlled municipalities were observed after multivariate regressions were performed on the data.Conclusions. It can be concluded that economic development can benefit the development of libraries, and better education or a more educated population has resulted in more library use. The correlation analysis and multivariate regression analysis can be developed as a new way to measure the societal value of public libraries orientated for economic development or other targets.

Blitar’s indigenous knowledge promotion through local content collections at Blitar Public Library

The public library is one of the institutions that have the function and task of preserving indigenous knowledge. Recorded in the form of collections stored in the library's local content service consist of printed books, e-books, and audio-visual collections use social media, especially Instagram, can facilitate the dissemination of indigenous knowledge information to local content collections in public libraries. This study aimed to produce media to promote Blitar's indigenous knowledge in the form of infographics with information sourced from the local content collection at the Blitar Public Library. Research method used development method and the Four-D development model with product development stages consisting of defining, designing, developing, and distributing. Respondents in this study were the people of Blitar, media promotion experts, material experts, and expert practitioners (librarians). In this study, product trials were carried out on three aspects consist of material, visual, and language. Based on the trials and validity tests results, it concludes that Blitar's local content promotion media products in the form of infographics are suitable for use with revisions. Blitar local wisdom infographics increase the reach by maximizing the use of hashtags and scheduling infographic uploads at the best times. Local content promotion media products in infographics form produced in this development research are quite good. However, there needs to be some improvement especially on material aspect. The material that was carried did not represent all local wisdom topics in Blitar.

Urban Green Innovation Efficiency in China: Spatiotemporal Evolution and Influencing Factors

Investigating urban green innovation efficiency (UGIE) is imperative because it is correlated with the development of an ecological civilization and an innovative country. Spatiotemporal evolution and influencing factors of UGIE are two important scientific problems that are worth exploring. This study presents an indicator system for UGIE that includes input, expected output, and unexpected output, and employs a super-efficiency slacks-based measure (super-SBM) to calculate UGIE in 284 cities at or above the prefecture level in China from 2005 to 2020. Then, we adopted spatial auto-correlation to identify its spatial differences among these cities and Geodetector to evaluate its influencing factors. The results are as follows: (1) The overall UGIE tended to rise, except in northeastern China, megacities, and super large-sized cities. (2) The UGIE of Chinese cities exhibited remarkable spatial differences and auto-correlation, and the “low-low” type enjoyed the most local spatial auto-correlations. (3) Sociocultural factors represented by the number of collections in public libraries became the most important factors affecting the UGIE in China.

What’s in a book exchange: Examining contents in relation to steward intentions, geography, and public library collections

In the last decade, book exchanges, most prominently those registered with the Little Free Library® network, have attracted the interest of researchers and media alike. Very little is known about what types of books are available in these book exchanges and how their collections compare to those in public libraries. To address this gap in knowledge, we selected a random sample of 42 Little Free Libraries across eight Seattle neighborhoods to inventory their contents. We interviewed the stewards about their stocking and weeding practices. Our inventory shows that most of the books available in Little Free Libraries are children’s, mystery, suspense, self-help/health, and scifi/fantasy books published in the last 10–30 years. Neighborhoods in our sample ranged in socioeconomic and racial diversity measures, but there were no significant differences in LFL contents related to those measures. We also compared our inventory to the collections of nearby public library branches and found Little Free Libraries offer a complementary rather than competitive selection scenario: books in LFLs are generally older, with a lesser proportion of children’s books and higher proportion of fiction books.

Digital Music Collections of National and Major Public Libraries of German-speaking Countries

The article presents the brief description of freely available selected digital music collections of the national and largest public libraries of German-speaking countries: Austria, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. The author studies the main stages of the historical formation of musical culture in the German-speaking environment, chronologically correlated with the brilliant names of composers, founders and recognized authorities of the classical music school. As an illustrative material, the author gives diagrams with quantitative characteristics of the distribution of digital content by the types and quantity of documents, as well as personalities of composers. The paper provides current links to resources and thematic portals created by libraries within the framework of sectoral collaboration.National and major public libraries collect and store documentary heritage, including musical collections, which differ by the type diversity of documents. Digital collections generated by libraries based on their own priorities and technical capabilities contribute to the physical preservation of documents. Digital music collections act as promoters of the great heritage of the classical music school, which has received recognition on the world musical Olympus. For the first time, the paper considers the combined heritage of the classical music school of the national and the largest German-language libraries of free access. Thanks to modern technologies of document digitisation, the use of thermographic camera (for reproducing filigree signs), creation of comfortable interface in language understandable to user, libraries expand the audience of researchers, going beyond the country, contribute to conducting scientific research in a remote format. Libraries are becoming a progressive, democratic platform and an equal partner of the world scientific community and at the same time receive additional funding for the implementation of the next ambitious projects.

Local History Research Databases in Latvian Public Libraries

The paper analyzes the collections and databases of the online local history research created by Latvian public libraries, as well as describes the content of the databases as well as available sources of information and its formats. The research base is websites of the main libraries of Latvia's regions and the digital local history research available online. The result of the research led to the conclusion that Latvian public libraries offer a wide range of online local history research resources and databases: local countyman databases and encyclopedia, libraries history materials, information about county, oral history collections: personal records and memory stories. The interviews can be evidenced in audio format. The full texts of the interviews have also been published. Several Latvian public libraries also offer a video format. It is concluded that the local history databases of Latvian public libraries store and provide unique information about the time, place, historical events and people in the region. The sources of oral history included in the local history databases in the collections of Latvian public libraries are an important part of the historical heritage.

IV. Konrad Maurers Briefe in öffentlichen Sammlungen mit einer Probe seiner Briefe aus Christiania 1876

Abstract Konrad Maurer’s Letters in Public Library and Archive Collections. This paper accounts for both the hitherto little known depositories and the considerable amount of widely dispersed letters that came down to us written by Konrad Maurer, professor of law in Munich, between 1846 and 1900 to colleagues and friends in Germany, England, the Nordic Countries, and the United States of America. This account is supplemented by lists of letters both of Konrad Maurer’s wife Valérie on his behalf and of the relatively few letters to Konrad Maurer that have survived.

The Contributions of Public Libraries to Satisfy Intellectual Curiosity of Rural Inhabitants in West Bengal: An Indian Case Study

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the contributions of public libraries to the satisfaction of the intellectual needs of rural inhabitants in West Bengal, India. The study applied a quantitative survey method with the help of a well-structured questionnaire. Questionnaires were distributed among to the users (students, officers/professionals, self-employed individuals, businessmen, jobseekers, retired persons, and housewives) of 45 rural public libraries in five selected districts of West Bengal. The study found that the largest group of respondents belonged to the students and jobseekers categories, who visit the rural public libraries for seeking academic and job-related information. Many students from humble backgrounds were solely dependent on public libraries because they have procured some textbooks from middle school up to graduation level. Jobseekers were mostly consulting the Career Guidance Section of the library to prepare for various competitive exams. The study also revealed that public libraries have been trying to satisfy the intellectual and informational needs of the rural inhabitants by providing various services and facilities. Respondents have further reported that public libraries should adopt modern technologies and provide ICT-based library services as well. The outcome of this study would help to develop and upgrade the public library collection, services, and facilities in developing countries in a way that reflects patrons’ stated needs.