The Library

Background:

Definition:

A library is a collection of sources, resources, and services, and the structure in which it is housed; it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual. In the more traditional sense, a library is a collection of books. It can mean the collection, the building or room that houses such a collection, or both. The term “library” has itself acquired a secondary meaning: “a collection of useful material for common use,” and in this sense is used in fields such as computer science, mathematics, statistics, electronics and biology.(Wikipedia, 2010)

 The FEU Library:

The FEU Library is an academic library which serves an institution of higher learning for such a university . This type library serves two complementary purposes:

(1) to support the school’s curriculum

 and

(2)to support the research of the university faculty and students.

The support of teaching requires material for class readings, and for student papers. In the past, the material for class readings, intended to supplement lectures as prescribed by the instructor, has been called reserves. In the period before electronic resources became available, the reserves were supplied as actual books or as photocopies of appropriate journal articles. Traditionally, one copy of a book was made available for each 10 students — this is practical for large classes only if paperback copies are available, and the books reused from term to term.

Academic libraries must decide what focus they take in collecting materials since no single library can supply everything. When there are particular areas of specialization in academic libraries these are often referred to as niche collections. These collections are often the basis of a special collection department and may include original papers, artwork, and artifacts written or created by a single author or about a specific subject.

The FEU Library Organization:

The FEU Library has materials arranged in a specified order according to a library classification system, so that items may be located quickly and collections may be browsed efficiently. Some libraries have additional galleries beyond the public ones, where reference materials are stored. These reference stacks may be open to selected members of the public. Others require patrons to submit a “stack request,” which is a request for an assistant to retrieve the material from the closed stacks.

The FEU Library is broken down into departments staffed by librarians.

• Circulation - Handles user accounts and the loaning/returning and shelving of materials.
• Collection Development - Orders materials and maintains materials budgets.
• Reference - Staffs a reference desk answering user questions (using structured reference interviews), instructing users, and developing library programming. Reference may be further broken down by user groups or materials; common collections are children’s literature, young adult literature, and genealogy materials.
• Technical Services - Works behind the scenes cataloguing and processing new materials and deaccessioning weeded materials.
• Stacks Maintenance - Re-shelves materials that have been returned to the library after patron use and shelves materials that have been processed by Technical Services. Stacks Maintenance also shelf reads the material in the stacks to ensure that it is in the correct library classification order.

The FEU Library Management System:

Basically, tasks in library management include the planning of acquisitions (which materials the library should acquire, by purchase or otherwise), library classification of acquired materials, preservation of materials (especially rare and fragile archival materials such as manuscripts), the deaccessioning of materials, patron borrowing of materials, and developing and administering library computer systems. More long-term issues include the planning of the construction of new libraries or extensions to existing ones, and the development and implementation of outreach services and reading-enhancement services (such as adult literacy and children’s programming).

In the past couple of years, more and more people are using the Internet to gather and retrieve data. The shift to digital libraries has greatly impacted the average person’s use of physical libraries. Between 2002 and 2004, the average American academic library saw its overall number of transactions decline approximately 2.2%. Libraries are trying to keep up with the digital world and the new generation of students that are used to having information just one click away. For example, The University of California Library System saw a 54% decline in circulation between 1991 to 2001 of 8,377,000 books to 3,832,000.

These facts might be a consequence of the increased availability of e-resources. In 1999-2000, 105 ARL university libraries spent almost $100 million on electronic resources, which is an increase of nearly $23 million from the previous year.A 2003 report by the Open E-book Forum found that close to a million e-books had been sold in 2002, generating nearly $8 million in revenue. Another example of the shift to digital libraries can be seen in Cushing Academy’s decision to dispense with its library of printed books — more than 20,000 volumes in all — and switch over entirely to digital media resources.

One claim to why there is a decrease in the usage of libraries stems from the observation of the research habits of undergraduate students enrolled in colleges and universities. There have been claims that college undergraduates have become more used to retrieving information from the Internet than a traditional library. As each generation becomes more in tune with the Internet, their desire to retrieve information as quickly and easily as possible has increased. There is no doubt that finding information by simply searching the Internet is much easier and faster than reading an entire book. In a survey conducted by NetLibrary, 93% of undergraduate students claimed that finding information online makes more sense to them then going to the library. Also, 75% of students surveyed claimed that they did not have enough time to go to the library and that they liked the convenience of the Internet. While the retrieving information from the Internet may be efficient and time saving than visiting a traditional library, research has shown that undergraduates are most likely searching only .03% of the entire web.The information that they are finding might be easy to retrieve and more readily available, but may not be as in depth as information from other resources such as the books available at a physical library.

Recent Changes:

The Electronic Information Solutions is pleased to announce our first Destiny Installation in Metro Manila. The Far Eastern University (FEU), a long-time Athena user found that Destiny is the best upgrade option for them. This migration from Athena to Destiny was formally launched at FEU’s electronic library last June 19, 2008.

The event was attended by the University President Dr. Lydia B. Echauz, officials, college deans, librarians and concerned staff to personally witness the benefits of the web-based software to their school.

As an introduction, Mr. Luke Mark Odon (Library Systems-Administrator) gave some background on their former library software Athena. After which, EISI team presented the benefits of the Destiny Library Manager focusing on the real time access to the database through its OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog). It was a day full of interaction and hands-on experience among the participants as EISI team headed by Mr. Axel Cabarles (Sales Supervisor) and Mr. Pedro Tabinas (Technical Supervisor) took time to demonstrate the benefits of Destiny to FEU.

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Basic tasks in library management include the planning of acquisitions (which materials the library should acquire, by purchase or otherwise), library classification of acquired materials, preservation of materials (especially rare and fragile archival materials such as manuscripts), the deaccessioning of materials, patron borrowing of materials, and developing and administering library computer systems. More long-term issues include the planning of the construction of new libraries or extensions to existing ones, and the development and implementation of outreach services and reading-enhancement services (such as adult literacy and children’s programming).

Library helps us to search answer to our question… it make us easy to look for what we are searching… without library, the things for we need to search is hard to find…