Public Libraries
Paragraph A The word public comes from a Latin word, publicus, meaning people. A public library is for all the people in a community to use. It charges no fee for its services. The public library will have available, within the limits of its budget, a wide variety of books and other materials. These books or other materials may be borrowed, or taken out for a specific time, by anyone in the community. The library loans its materials.
Paragraph B Public libraries are usually tax-supported. There are a few that are instead supported from money that has been donated. And there are some that receive part of their money from taxes and part from gifts.
Paragraph C Few public libraries are exactly alike. Not only are the shapes and sizes of the buildings different, but so are the number of books and other materials in each. Your nearest library may be like the Los Angeles Public Library, which has over 4,538,458 books and bound periodicals (magazines and journals) in its collection. Or it may be like the Cherokee County Public Library, which has only about 3,800 books in its collection.
Paragraph D Libraries vary in other ways, too, for instance, in the number of hours (or days) they are open or in the number of people who work there. Most public libraries, however, arrange their books and other materials in similar ways. They divide their collections into two basic age groups, children and adult. Adult books are in one place; children's books are in another. Then the books are further separated by the kind of book. Storybooks – works of fiction – are separated from information, or fact books – nonfiction.
Paragraph E People often want to refer to, that is, look something up in a certain basic information book. Thus reference books, which are rarely read cover to cover, are put in a special place in the library, a reference section or perhaps a reference room. Reference books are never to be taken out of the library building.
Paragraph F Each library decides for itself how it should further arrange its books and other materials. In a large city library, certain nonfiction materials may be put into a special area or separate room. For instance, there may be a separate room just for all the materials a library has on music. In another large city, the music materials might not be kept so separate. It would depend on what the people in that city had indicated they found useful.
Paragraph G A library's holdings are everything the library has in its collection. These holdings almost always reflect the community's special interests. Suppose, for example, there were a town where Morgan horses were widely raised and trained. That town's library would most likely have a great deal of material about Morgan horses. Since the people who were interested in Morgan horses would probably be less interested in other breeds of horses, the library might have only a small amount of material on Mustangs or Appaloosas.