Compare the Environments and Organizational Settings in Which Library and Information Professionals Practice

Environment and Organizational Settings

Compare the environments and organizational settings in which library and information professionals practice

There are various types of libraries demonstrating different environment and organizational settings. In order to make the libraries diverse and dynamic, each library has the ability to reflect characteristics of their user community. This research will focus on differentiating environment and organizational settings of the four critical library organizations: academic libraries, school libraries, special libraries, and public libraries.

Public Libraries

In the case of the United States, public libraries have the ability to offer services to the people following their establishments by law. The main objective of the public libraries is to enhance accessibility of citizens to information through facilitating reading and borrowing of resources free of charge. This is critical towards the achievement of the public libraries in relation to creation of a more informed citizenry. Moreover, these libraries have the ability to offer entertainment through programming and materials to the public. The source of finance for the operations of the public libraries is taxpayer's money. Public libraries have the obligation of offering support to the persons, groups and governmental agencies in the context of the community. This is through creation of an essential collaborative support system for the shareholders and stakeholders.

Academic Libraries

The main objective of these libraries is to offer services to students, faculty, and interested parties with the ability to procure or purchase membership. The scope of the academic libraries is narrower in comparison to the public libraries. In this case, librarians make decisions on material and resource selection in relation to consultation and input by the faculty as opposed to the public libraries in which librarians have the obligation and ability to make independent decisions. This is because of the selection approach to work in accordance with the coursework. Programming in these libraries includes integration of the bibliographic instructions on the execution of research. The main objective of the academic libraries is to nurture and enhance intellectual thoughts in accordance with course work and broader discoveries for the benefit of the society. Universities have the ability to integrate several academic libraries with the aim of serving specialized academic community.

School Libraries

School libraries have the obligation and capacity to offer support to the educational institutions in which they lay. Library teachers and teachers might adopt collaborative relationship in presentation of the specific topic and instructions on how to executing research in relation to the topic of interest. There are two types of school libraries: elementary school libraries and middle/high school libraries. The latter has capacity to offer services to a larger population in comparison to the former. In the context of middle and high schools, professionals have the obligation and duty of limiting programming to instruction of executing research as well as allocated time for the research.