Discuss the services provided by a special library.
Answers
Answer:
Alison O’Connor, in Libraries in the Twenty-First Century, 2007
Challenges for special libraries
Special libraries can be a dynamic environment in which to work, but, like many library sectors, special libraries are struggling to find their place, to establish their territory and define their services in a new information world. In an article about the closure of a large corporate library in Melbourne in the early 1990s, it was noted by Jill Nicholls (1992) that in a climate of unpredictable management decisions it was imperative that special librarians do not become complacent and assume that their services are recognised and indispensable.
The funding and resources afforded to a special library are often directly related to the success and financial position of its parent company or organisation. Many special libraries are a support service. They support the overall goals of the organisation and assist in providing employees/members with the information they need to complete their jobs or roles. From an accounting point of view, when it comes down to the bottom line, however, they are essentially an organisational expense, an overhead. Unfortunately, one of the first areas to be looked at when an organisation is not performing is the cost of its overheads.
Another challenge facing special libraries is the view that ‘everything is on the internet, why do we need a library anymore?’ This is actually a challenge for all library sectors, but more so for special libraries where the existence of a library is perhaps not as secure. As mentioned previously, libraries used to operate in a monopoly environment, but now there are other businesses and options for their clients. It is imperative, therefore, that special libraries demonstrate their worth. Glockner (2004) argues that special libraries and information services need to do this through accountability and accreditation and they should apply the following three levels of accountability:
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Fiscal – proving how we spend our budgets.
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Process – explaining why we bought certain resources for our libraries.
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Program – showing that those resources are used and useful to our clients.
Hendricks and Wooler (2006, p. 14) maintain that being good at what one does and the services one provides is no longer good enough. They assert that very good information centres will be cut, and may be outsourced or ‘off-shored’, not because of their inability to provide good services, but because of their inability to demonstrate a return on investment (ROI) or provide evidence of the impact they make on their organisations.
Interestingly, there does not appear to be a universally accepted method for measuring value. Woldring (2001, p.294) provides a summary of the literature and methods for measuring the value of special libraries. He warns that special librarians currently hold the key to using the vast array of online databases, but this professional niche increasingly will be challenged by clients conducting searches themselves as end-users at their desks.
Answer:
A special library mainly means a library affiliated to a central authority system and scientific research system, whose service is mainly to provide subject and field-based scientific and technological literature resource guarantees, subject information service, and strategic information research service to scientific ...