The reference desk or information desk of a library is a public service counter where professional librarians provide library users with direction to library materials, advice on library collections and services, and expertise on multiple kinds of information from multiple sources.
Information science is an academic field which is primarily concerned with analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection of information. Practitioners within and outside the field study the application and the usage of knowledge in organizations in addition to the interaction between people, organizations, and any existing information systems with the aim of creating, replacing, improving, or understanding the information systems.
A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan was a librarian and mathematician from India. His most notable contributions to the field were his five laws of library science and the development of the first major faceted classification system, the colon classification. He is considered to be the father of library science, documentation, and information science in India and is widely known throughout the rest of the world for his fundamental thinking in the field. His birthday is observed every year as the National Librarian Day in India.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to human–computer interaction:
Web 2.0 refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability for end users.
Digital reference is a service by which a library reference service is conducted online, and the reference transaction is a computer-mediated communication. It is the remote, computer-mediated delivery of reference information provided by library professionals to users who cannot access or do not want face-to-face communication. Virtual reference service is most often an extension of a library's existing reference service program. The word "reference" in this context refers to the task of providing assistance to library users in finding information, answering questions, and otherwise fulfilling users’ information needs. Reference work often but not always involves using reference works, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc. This form of reference work expands reference services from the physical reference desk to a "virtual" reference desk where the patron could be writing from home, work or a variety of other locations.
Michael Gorman is a British-born librarian, library scholar and editor/writer on library issues noted for his traditional views. During his tenure as president of the American Library Association (ALA), he was vocal in his opinions on a range of subjects, notably technology and education. He currently lives in the Chicago area with his wife, Anne Reuland, an academic administrator at Loyola University.
Library 2.0 is a proposed concept for library services that facilitate user contributions and other features of Web 2.0, which includes online services such as OPAC systems. The term "Library 2.0" was coined by Michael Casey in 2006 on his blog Library Crunch.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to library and information science:
The Nanyang Technological University Libraries consist of eight libraries located within the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) campus in Jurong, Singapore. All of the libraries are open to all staff and students of NTU, regardless of which faculty they belong to. Members of the public can also use library facilities and view print resources, but only members of NTU may check out materials or access electronic resources.
Jesse Hauk Shera was an American librarian and information scientist who pioneered the use of information technology in libraries and played a role in the expansion of its use in other areas throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.
Readers' advisory is a service which involves suggesting fiction and nonfiction titles to a reader through direct or indirect means. This service is a fundamental library service; however, readers' advisory also occurs in commercial contexts such as bookstores. Currently, almost all North American public libraries offer some form of readers' advisory.
Knowledge organization (KO), organization of knowledge, organization of information, or information organization is an intellectual discipline concerned with activities such as document description, indexing, and classification that serve to provide systems of representation and order for knowledge and information objects. According to The Organization of Information by Joudrey and Taylor, information organization:
examines the activities carried out and tools used by people who work in places that accumulate information resources for the use of humankind, both immediately and for posterity. It discusses the processes that are in place to make resources findable, whether someone is searching for a single known item or is browsing through hundreds of resources just hoping to discover something useful. Information organization supports a myriad of information-seeking scenarios.
Subject indexing is the act of describing or classifying a document by index terms, keywords, or other symbols in order to indicate what different documents are about, to summarize their contents or to increase findability. In other words, it is about identifying and describing the subject of documents. Indexes are constructed, separately, on three distinct levels: terms in a document such as a book; objects in a collection such as a library; and documents within a field of knowledge.
Library and information science (LIS) are two interconnected disciplines that deal generally with organization, access, collection, and regulation of information, whether in physical or digital forms.
In the context of libraries and archives, an inventory refers to a detailed list or record of the items, materials, or resources held within a collection.
With over 17,000 libraries and 2.5 billion materials circulated annually in the United States alone, libraries are a ubiquitous part of the American landscape. However, as libraries modernize, they face an increasingly harsh budget environment, as well as technological disruption in media, scholarship, and education. The political, social, and technological environment is one of transformation and uncertainty.
The Kropyvnytskyi Regional Universal Research Library (RURL) is one of the oldest research libraries in Ukraine and the largest in the region. The library was named after D.I. Chyzhevskyi. It has universal books and documents on traditional and modern media. It houses collections of precious and rare publications and is the depositary of publications on local lore.
Pauline Atherton Cochrane is an American librarian and one of the most highly cited authors in the field of library and information sciences. She is considered a leading researcher in the campaign to redesign catalogues and indexes to provide improved online subject access in library and information services as well as "a leading teacher and theorist in cataloging, indexing, and information access."
