The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject. It was first published in the United States by Melvil Dewey in 1876. Originally described in a 44-page pamphlet, it has been expanded to multiple volumes and revised through 23 major editions, the latest printed in 2011. It is also available in an abridged version suitable for smaller libraries. OCLC, a non-profit cooperative that serves libraries, currently maintains the system and licenses online access to WebDewey, a continuously updated version for catalogers.
Bolton is a small suburban town in the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, United States. The population was 4,858 as of the 2020 census. Bolton was incorporated in October 1720 and is governed by town meeting, with a first selectman and board of selectman as well as other boards serving specific functions. Bolton was named after a town of the same name in England, also located near Manchester.
Ashby is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,193 at the 2020 census, which makes it the least populous municipality in Middlesex County. Ashby is primarily a bedroom community, consisting almost entirely of single family homes and a limited number of businesses.
Harvard is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is located 25 miles west-northwest of Boston, in eastern Massachusetts. It is mostly bounded by I-495 to the east and Route 2 to the north. A farming community settled in 1658 and incorporated in 1732, it has been home to several non-traditional communities, such as Harvard Shaker Village and the utopian transcendentalist center Fruitlands. It is also home to St. Benedict Abbey, a traditional Catholic monastery, and for over seventy years was home to Harvard University's Oak Ridge Observatory, at one time the most extensively equipped observatory in the Eastern United States. It is now a rural and residential town noted for its public schools. The population was 6,851 at the 2020 census.
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester in England. In the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is between Manchester, Blackburn, Wigan, Bury and Salford. It is surrounded by several towns and villages that form the wider borough, of which Bolton is the administrative centre. The town is also within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire.
A national library is a library established by a government as a country's preeminent repository of information. Unlike public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuable, or significant works. A national library is that library which has the duty of collecting and preserving the literature of the nation within and outside the country. Thus, national libraries are those libraries whose community is the nation at large. Examples include the British Library in London, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.
Sterling Memorial Library (SML) is the main library building of the Yale University Library system in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Opened in 1931, the library was designed by James Gamble Rogers as the centerpiece of Yale's Gothic Revival campus. The library's tower has sixteen levels of bookstacks containing over 4 million volumes. Several special collections—including the university's Manuscripts & Archives—are also housed in the building. It connects via tunnel to the underground Bass Library, which holds an additional 150,000 volumes.
A chained library is a library where the books are attached to their bookcase by a chain, which is sufficiently long enough to allow the books to be taken from their shelves and read, but not removed from the library itself. The practice was usual for reference libraries from the Middle Ages to around the 18th century. This would prevent theft of the library's materials. Since the chaining process was also expensive, it was not used on all books, only the more valuable books such as reference works or large books in a collection were chained. Librarians in the Middle Ages often invoked curses as well to keep books from being stolen. Once such curse written into the books was,
Open Library is an online project intended to create "one web page for every book ever published". Created by Aaron Swartz, Brewster Kahle, Alexis Rossi, Anand Chitipothu, and Rebecca Malamud, Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization. It has been funded in part by grants from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation. Open Library provides online digital copies in multiple formats, created from images of many public domain, out-of-print, and in-print books.
Libraries have been lending books to the public for thousands of years. First libraries date back to 2600 BC during Sumerian civilization. In the modern era lending books largely happens by Public Libraries. Generally worldwide public libraries are non-profit organizations offering book lending services free to their patrons and are generally funded through taxes and donations or by the state., Public libraries are accessible to general public and are run by civil servants, state employees, or volunteers. Some of the largest libraries in the world include Library of Congress in the United States of America and British Library with millions of titles in their catalogs. Besides the public libraries, private libraries also provide lending services, and are usually run by individuals, associations, or by corporate organizations and universities. Private libraries usually require a subscription or membership to the library and provide services specific to the organization, area or university.
The first libraries in China came into being during the time of the Shang dynasty as intellectuals known as the Shi (historians) and Wu (diviners) emerged from manual labor to special occupations for the creation and spread of culture. Among the documents that these occupations managed were "the country's statute books, genealogies of imperial kinsmen, issued notices and orders, and recorded important events and natural phenomena. For future verification and reference, they built storehouses to keep records in different media. To meet the needs of more and more complicated affairs and to ensure easy use, they began to collect and sort out those records according to chronological order and category. Thus, the earliest library in China came into being. The numerous kinds of media loaded with information and knowledge emerged in human society, resulting in the concepts of preservation and collection. Accordingly, the earliest libraries and archives were the result of conscious collection, process, coalition, and utilization."
Cobblestone architecture refers to the use of cobblestones embedded in mortar as method for erecting walls on houses and commercial buildings. It was frequently used in the northeastern United States and upper Midwest in the early 19th century; the greatest concentration of surviving cobblestone buildings is in New York State, generally near the historic Erie Canal or connecting canals.
The Belmont Public Library is a public library in Belmont, Massachusetts. It is a member of the Minuteman Library Network. It is located on Concord Avenue near Belmont Center.
The Billerica Public Library is a public library in Billerica, Massachusetts. Since 2000 it has been located on Concord Road.
The Jonathan Bourne Public Library is a public library in Bourne, Massachusetts. Prior to 1891, the town lacked a public library, as it was a part of the town of Sandwich. The town of Bourne was incorporated on April 2, 1884. The Bourne library was named in honor of Jonathan Bourne (1811-1889), who was a New Bedford alderman, major investor in the whaling business, member of executive councils of Massachusetts governors George D. Robinson and Oliver Ames, and namesake of the town of Bourne. Bourne's daughter, Emily Howland Bourne, donated the library's original building in 1897.
The Cary Memorial Library (est.1869) is the main branch of the public library in Lexington, Massachusetts. It is located at 1874 Massachusetts Avenue in the town center.
The State Library of Massachusetts in Boston, Massachusetts was established in 1826 and "supports the research and information needs of government, libraries, and people through ... services and access to a comprehensive repository of state documents and other historical items." It "opened in 1826 and has been in its present location in the State House since the 1890s." The State Library falls under the administration of the governor.
The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (est.1890) is a state agency that supports libraries in Massachusetts. The governor appoints each commissioner. The current board consists of librarians, academics and library trustees: Carol B. Caro, Mary Ann Cluggish, George T. Comeau, Mary Kronholm, Frank Murphy, Roland Ochsenbein, Janine Resnik, Gregory J. Shesko, and Alice M. Welch.
The history of libraries began with the first efforts to organize collections of documents. Topics of interest include accessibility of the collection, acquisition of materials, arrangement and finding tools, the book trade, the influence of the physical properties of the different writing materials, language distribution, role in education, rates of literacy, budgets, staffing, libraries for targeted audiences, architectural merit, patterns of usage, and the role of libraries in a nation's cultural heritage, and the role of government, church or private sponsorship. Computerization and digitization arose from the 1960s, and changed many aspects of libraries.
The De Soto Trail Regional Library System is a public library system serving the counties of Mitchell, Baker and Early, in the state Georgia. The headquarters of the library system is the Camilla Public Library located in Camilla, Georgia.
