The Role of Libraries in Education

(http://worldlibrary24.com/)My Library:::::: ‘Education’ and ‘library’ are two inseparable—indivisible concepts, both being fundamentally and syn-chronically related to and co-existent with each other. One cannot be separated from the other, and the existence of one is an impossibility without the other. None of them is an end in itself, rather both of them together are a means to an ultimate end. One dies as soon as the other perishes. One survives as long as the other exists. This inter-relation, this co-existence, this dependence of one upon the other have been coming down from the birth of human civilization to the posterity through a process of evolution in accord with varied needs, changes, and circumstances of various stages of human life. Education is an ‘aggregate of all the processes by means of which a person develops abilities, altitudes, and other forms of behaviour positive value in the society in which he lives.’1 According to Carter V. Good it is a ‘social process by which people are subjected to the influence of a selected and controlled environment (especially that of the school ) so that they may attain social competence and optimum individual development .2 Education is thus the result of acquired knowledge and the cumulation of observations and experiences, while a library is both the fountain and source, and the protector and storehouse of that knowledge and experience. Education cannot exist alone in the absence of library, and library has no meaning if it cannot impart education. Education is an eye-opener to a human being ;it gives him perfect, adequate knowledge, creates civic and rational sense, withdraws him from the subjection of low habits, selfish passions, and ignoble pursuits, and thus educes him from abysmal darkness to limpid and perspicuous enlightenment, while library is an instrument of self-education, a means of knowledge and factual information, a centre of intellectual recreation, and a beacon of enlightenment that provide accumulated—preserved knowledge of civilization which consequently enrich ones mental vision, and dignify his habit, behaviour, character, taste, attitude, conduct, and outlook on life. Library makes available all the records of knowledge of the past and ‘present, whereas a man acquires that conserved knowledge to choose as between good and bad, the right or wrong, which distinguish him from the other animals who have no rational power or thinking. A good—well-equipped library is a sine qua non for the intellectual, moral, and spiritual advancement and elevation of the people of a community. It is an indispensable element of the absolute well-being of the citizens and that of the nation at large. People acquire education through certain institutions, schools, agencies, welfare bodies, museums, and organizations, and library is the most outstanding of such institution ! A school, a club, an enterprise of a society can never alone impart education ; each of them is dependent upon a library—a centre of wholesome education, and the quencher of thirst for concrete, fathomless, ultimate knowledge ! Library does not mean merely a collection of books. It is a learned institution equipped with treasures of knowledge maintained, organized, and managed by trained personnels to educate the children, men and women continuously and assist in their self-improvement through an effective and prompt dissemination of information embodied in the resources. A research scholar can never successfully conduct his investigations and researches without the help of a library and a librarian. Librarian, as an “information officer” or a “scientific officer” possesses, of necessity, definite subject background and knows best the subject area to be covered by an investigator in his narrow field of the problem in hand that he wants to attack ! He is a best teacher to guide him with all existing up-to-date possible sources including various articles in research journals, periodicals, etc., as well as the rare information available in rare books, microfilms, microfiche, manuscripts, and the like. He can guide him most effectively and comprehensively with the bibliographies, indexes, abstracts, data-books and such innumerable reference sources and bibliographical apparatus which the investigator might, otherwise, be unaware of. Here a professionally trained efficient librarian plays a most significant role in the achievement of modern scientific discoveries. The importance of an up-to-date library in the projection of research studies can thus be very scarcely overemphasized. The scope of a library as an effective aid to study and education is virtually multitudinous. There are different types of libraries, viz., (a) Special library, (b) Public library and (c) Academic library which contribute to education in various different ways. Before accounting their role in education abruptly, it may be pertinent here to recall the definitions of these various kinds of institutions which are not often self-explanatory to the general public at which my present endeavour is primarily aimed, so that the various parts played by them in the furtherence of education can be distinctly and succinctly gleaned. Academic libraries, comprise of school libraries, college libraries, and university libraries whose prime objective is to meet the academic needs of the particular institution for which it is created to serve. The purpose of a university library differs, in varying degree, from that of a school or college library in that the former adheres extensive and particular emphasis to research projects apart from the curricular needs of the institution. Besides aiding in the studies of children and assisting the teachers in their teaching and periodical research , 3,4,5 a school library is primarily concerned to pro-create an urge for reading amongst the children who here get a first-hand-knowledge to use the library resources most effectively in their future career. This institution serves to build up a strong mental base and character of the children. A public library which is very often called a ”peoples’ university”,6 is a democratic institution operated for the people by the people that conserves and organizes human know. ledge in order to place it freely in the service of the community without any distinction of occupation, creed, class, or race. It is a university of the people since it is maintained and financed by the people of the community who freely throng in this institution and acquire knowledge that they need in their day-to-day life. The scope or command of a public library that meets not specific but general requirements of the public thus remains quite broader in its vision. It differs from the other types of libraries in that by offering opportunities of informal self-education it inculcates reading habit amongst all types of general readers and, as a consequence, maintains a sizeable collection of light literatures, i.e., fictions, novels, story books, etc., for recreational studies, and a children’s corner equipped with juvenile literature. Among its broad based functions to perform in educating the general public as well as the children, the following ones can be quoted : 7,8,9 a. it facilitates informal self-education of all people in the community ; b. enriches and further develops the subjects on which individuals are undertaking formal education ; c. meets the informational needs of all ; d. creates and further develops civic sense and habits of the citizens ; e. supports educational, civic, and cultural activities of groups and organizations ; f. encourages wholesome recreation and constructive use of leisure time g. provides children, young people, men and women opportunity to : (i) educate themselves continuously, (ii) keep abreast of progress in all fields of knowledge, and (iii) maintain freedom of expression and constructively critical attitude to all public issues and world affairs. Contrary to this, a special library, which is concerned with ‘ literature of a particular subject or group of subjects’,10 is an institution which is ‘created to serve the needs of some working organization, either a company, a research association or a government department’.11 It is often established ‘to save time which the staff, either executive or research, would otherwise employ searching for information’.12 Paul Wasserman has rightly asserted that the “special libraries have never had subtle or indirect aims ; unlike public or college libraries, their mandate is almost always clearer and sharper, and consequently their objectives normally seem more tangible, more realistic, even perhaps more attainable in the pragmatic sense of the term, than those of other types of libraries. The special library has been historically, and remains today, an integral, functioning unit of the organization in which it is found, dedicated to the proposition that it exists only to offer the information which the organization needs in order to build, prosper, advance, and achieve its ultimate ends.” The highly specialized libraries do necessarily contain certain amount of materials on bordering or allied subjects for instance, the library of the Institute of Business Administration should include such subjects as economics, statistics, banks and banking, etc., beside the all embracing term ‘business and commerce’. The library of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics should again contain materials on accountancy, banking and finance, and statistics, while a library specially concerned with the literature relating to television engineering should contain materials on optics and lighting, beside the primarily concerned term ‘electronics’. This happens so usually in a special library for it aims at making available all the possible related materials on a particular topic chosen by a research scholar for research project. A special library which is specialized in a particular field of knowledge differs in its mandate from other types of libraries on the following grounds : a. periodical literature is of prime importance and forms the major part of the collection (about 90 p.c.) b. reports, standards, specifications form a considerable quantity ; c. it files information rather than material’ which calls for the introduction of special techniques ( mechanical indexing, information retrieval system, etc.) for organization ; d. information here are most up-to-date more than the textbooks, periodical literatures or published reports ; c. it ensures quickest dissemination of information. It is evident from the above that the different types of libraries play a significant role on different styles in educating the citizenry of a nation. The utility of a library in education can at once be felt and generalized particularly when we look into the educational conditions of the poor. The most flagrant aspect of the predicament of the poor people in Pakistan is that their children are subjected to woefully inefficient public education. The degree of reading retardation among the children of rejected and oppressed peoples throughout the nation is traumatically alarming. This is due to their poverty that culminates in their inability to purchase valuable books and also to bear heavy expenses of tuition fees, etc. With the help of the libraries we may very well lodge a “war” or campaign against this poverty for which the education has remained handicapped and limited to the people of the upper strata of our society. Libraries make available all the relevant books and other materials almost free of cost, and the children of the poor and the rich alike can derive equal amount of advantages out of this free service that helps in pursuing constructive education. While writing on the role of librarians in the “Relevant War Against Poverty”, Kenneth B. dark observes that the “librarians can contribute significantly to this struggle for unqualified humanity in a number of ways directly related to their specific concern with books and reading.14 “The librarian”, he contends, “is the guardian of books which communicate our cultural heritage, and be is generally seen as the custodian of the chronicles of the human struggle for understanding the joys and tragedies, poetry, the satires, which attempt to plumb the various levels of human experience. 15 Apart from this the public libraries render a yeoman service in the adult education through extension services and audio-visual aids, viz., story hours, lectures, book exhibitions, displays, book weeks, and motion pictures, newsreels, film strips, music scores, phonorecocds, and the like. These aids save people from the hackneyed monotony of perusing books, and teach them practically on the spot. They are also an aid to mass education of those who cannot read or write. This is of particular importance to the overwhelming illiterate people (above 80 p.c.) living in the villages. The traveling libraries are also of particular significance here since they carry the books to those remote areas of villages and towns where education could not thrive due to the absence of reading materials and reading centres. A library has been the chief conserver of knowledge achieved by men in their intellectual pursuits that helps in generating new ideas and discoveries, while ‘education’ is an art of making available to each generation the organized knowledge of the past. Louis Round Wilson and M. F. Tauber have rightly opined that “the process of social change are inter-woven in the facts, ideas, and interventions of man ; and each new idea or invention grows out of accumulated and conserved knowledge”.16 A library is not, however, merely a conserver of the past events, experiences, and knowledge. ‘The preservation of the physical object called the “book”, for example, may not be important in itself. What is important is for the library to transmit to the incoming generations the ideas which the book contains.’17 Through the instructional staff of the academic institutions the knowledge and ideas conserved by a library are revitalized arid put to use in the education of youth who are to be leaders in society and workers in the field of research, and through the methods of research the students are given an opportunity for independent works, and then the libraries and laboratories become unescapable and vital aids in an endeavour which is directed toward the expansion of man’s fund of knowledge. While the library makes this direct contribution to the advancement of knowledge, it serves as the principal training ground for those who undertake investigations in the fields of science, technology, industry, and the like. Thus the libraries have an essential and close bearing upon the advancement of education and learning at all levels for all the times to come.