Importance of Libraries

Man’s quest for knowledge has led to the creation and accumulation of tremendous amount of information. This quest for knowledge knows no bounds and limits and is never satisfied. It has continued since the dawn of civilization to the modern age. This hard-earned knowledge and information is valuable for the entire mankind and therefore liable to be preserved. With the invention of paper man has been able to convey this knowledge to others by writing books. Thousands of manuscripts have been written by the wise men of the earlier times but many of them were destroyed due to the lack of proper means of preservation.

Libraries are established for the systematic collection, organization, preservation and dissemination of knowledge and information. It is very important for man to preserve and maintain the valuable knowledge and information contained in the books and documents because we want to preserve our knowledge and wisdom for the coming generations. By preserving the documents in a library this knowledge can be made available to others so that they can benefit from it. Establishment of libraries is not a new concept. The oldest library dates to around 2700 years ago in Sennacherib’s Palace in Nineveh which shows how long ago the concept of leaving a piece of your wisdom behind started being formed into the organized collection to preserve the work.

With the invention of printing press, it became easier to preserve the knowledge in the form of printed documents. This led to the generation of a large number of books. The need for the preservation and dissemination of information led to the establishment of more and more libraries. Thus libraries acquired a great importance in the civilized society for education and research. Libraries play a vital role in the development of any society by enhancing the cause of education and academic research. They cater to the information needs of thousands of peoples. Read the rest of this entry »

The Roles of Libraries in Teaching and Learning

INTRODUCTION:

Libraries have long served crucial roles in learning. The first great library, in Alexandria two thousand years ago was really the first university. It consisted of a zoo and various cultural artifacts in addition to much of the ancient world’s written knowledge and attracted scholars from around the Mediterranean who lived and worked in a scholarly community for years at a time. Today, the rhetoric associated with the National/Global Information Infrastructure (N/GII) always includes examples of how the vast quantities of information that global networks provide (i.e., digital libraries) will be used in educational settings. An important aspect of the Library’s educational mission is to promote and develop informational literacy in its users. Information literacy, in general, is the ability to identify, locate, use and interpret information effectively.

Role of Modern Libraries:

A library is defined by three fundamental functions:

(1)selection to create a “collection”;
(2) organization to enable access; and
(3) preservation for ongoing use.

Although technologies may evolve to add the second function to the Web, the first and third functions are antithetical to the very nature of today’s Web. The Web’s successor will become more “library-like,” and libraries will continue to become more “Web-like,” but each will retain some essential differences from the other.

The Web is most definitely not a library now, and it probably never will be. But the Web provides a wonderful mechanism for collaboration between and among scholars and librarians who want to create “libraries” of high-quality resources on a particular topic for scholarship and teaching. Another great concern about Web resources is that they are ephemeral. Libraries select and preserve information resources for generations to come. The longevity of Web-based resources is calculated in days! Read the rest of this entry »

Notable Colleges and Universities in Reading

Reading plays host to a number of renowned educational institutions that have made their mark on the landscape of UK learning. Here are some of the best of them.

University of Reading
The University of Reading is considered to be one of the top 10 most research-intensive universities in the United Kingdom. It also ranks as one of the top 200 universities in the world. The university’s reputation for teaching, research and enterprise is world-class.

Built in 1892, the University of Reading received its Royal Charter in 1926 and established a long tradition of research, education and training on a local, national and international level.

The university is a two-time recipient of the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education, which it won in 1998 and 2005. At present, it boasts of a strong multi-cultural environment, with over 3,000 international students coming from 120 countries.

The university campus is located a mere two miles from Reading’s city centre and offers a full set of university courses. The grounds span around 1.6 square kilometres and encompass three distinct campuses – Whiteknights Campus, London Road Campus and Blumershe Campus.

Whiteknights Campus, the largest of the three, is named after the White Knight, John De Erleigh IV, a 13th century knight. It includes woodlands, meadows and Whiteknights Lake, as well as the main University Library, which contains around a million books. The London Road Campus is the original university site and still hosts annual graduation ceremonies. Meanwhile, the Bulmershe Court Campus, located in Woodley, houses the Institute of Education and the School of Health and Social Care as well as the university’s largest hall of residence. Read the rest of this entry »