Hassan Usman Katsina polytechnic

Lis 421

Question

Explain the function of special library and explain services provide by special library

Group members

1 Abubakar almustapha H21ls014

2 salima Aminu H21LS015

3 Roth of use H21LS0

4 oko Lydia H21LS0

5 Abdullahi Sani h20ls010

6 abdulkarim laws h21ls017

7 Aminu abubakar h21ls016

8 Mubarak Abdul h21ls018

9 Yakuba umar h21ls020

10 musa sabi,u h21ls019

Introduction

In the 20th century, with the development of industrial, technological, and scientific advances, special
libraries emerged. The growing need for specialized information, further development, and research
played a vital role in expanding special libraries.

A special library collects updated and comprehensive information on the subject concerned with the
parent organization and disseminates this information promptly to the people associated with the
organization on demand and in anticipation. Besides this, another factor is that a special library develops
its major collection on some special subject or field.

American Library Association (ALA) glossary of library and Information Science- the special library is “a
library established, supported and administered by a business firm, private corporation, association,
government agency, or other special interest group of agency to meet the information needs of its
members or staff in pursuing the goals of the organization. Scope of collections and services is limited to
the subject interest of the host or parent organization.”
What is a Special Library

A special library is a type of library that serves a particular group or community, providing resources,
services, and programs that are tailored to the needs of its users. Special libraries are typically focused
on a specific subject or discipline, such as law, medicine, business, or science.

Special libraries can be found in a variety of settings, including government agencies, corporations,
nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions. Some examples of special libraries include the
Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, and the corporate libraries of companies such

Functions of the special library:

1 A special library performs the following functions primarily:

2 It selects and procures documents and other sources of relevant information;

3 It processes the procured information or documents with the help of classification, cataloguing, shelf
arrangements, etc., to make them readily available for the users;

4 It subscribes to a good number of journals related to its area;

5 It provides indexing and abstracting services to the users to save them time;

5 It provides reference services to the users by telephone, by post, or by email;

6 It gives current awareness service (CAS) regarding new arrivals and the latest services to the users;

7 It provides Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) services to the users as per their subject
interests and requirement;

8 It also gives document delivery service to its user;

9It brings out library bulletins weekly/ fortnightly/ monthly to keep the users up to date with the latest
information;

10 It gives translation services to provide the desired information to the users in their convenient
language;

11 It also provides internet as well as internet facility to the users in order to access the library collection
and catalogue on their desktop;
12 It responds to the reference queries and makes the retrospective search of literature as per users’
demand;

13It compiles bibliographies, union catalogues, documentation lists, newspaper clippings, accession lists,
etc., to save the time of its users; and

It provides an interlibrary loan facility to the users.

Library Services provided by Special Libraries for development in Nigeria

Special libraries in their effort and capacity provide several services which translate into

information service. These are services provided in anticipation of various needs of the users

of libraries. These services are also provided on demand by the users. Library and information

service delivery by special libraries is very crucial to satisfy their users information need and

to maintain their relevance in the organisations. Some of these services include the followings:

Current Awareness Services

Current awareness service is one of the services offered by Special libraries based on recently

published information sources. The purpose of a current awareness services is basically to

inform the users about new acquisitions in the library. Ashikuzzam (2013) defined current

awareness service as the establishment of “a system of reviewing publications immediately at

receipt, selecting information pertinent to the programme of the organization served and

recording individual items to be brought to the attention of those persons to whose work are

related”. It is a service that keeps the library users abreast of current development in their

subject areas of interest, where users are informed of latest documents available in the library.

Most libraries used display boards, telephone calls, e-mail messages, letters, preprint of papers,

photocopy of table of content, periodicals routings, maintenance of card files of references,

library bulletins, subscription to specialized services, electronic news groups, notice board in 3the library
and shelves to draw attentions in the library. While other libraries compile list of
new materials for circulation to the users (Britannica.com/science/library-classification.2019.).

Also, back covers of a selection of recent acquisitions could be displayed. Libraries can publish

accession lists or acquisition lists at regular intervals to provide the full bibliographic details

of materials recently acquired by the libraries. The order of arrangement of the new documents

is usually by major subject categories. Current awareness service is always provided to users

in broad subject categories without necessarily targeting a particular user since is not a

personalized service.

Literature search

Literature search by Aina (2004) is a systematic search for knowledge contained in the

document on a particular topic or theme held by a library or a document which the library has

access to. In this service, the library provides an extensive systematic topic, either from its

resources and the resources of the other libraries/organisation which specialize in the thematic

area. It usually leads to a compilation of a bibliographic description of such materials. For

instance, it will provide information on the author, title, ISBN, classification mark and location

of the material. In few cases, an abstract or summary of the material may be provided mainly

by special libraries.

Selective dissemination of information

Selective dissemination of information is a personalized service provided by special libraries.

Katz (1987) state that selective dissemination of information is an attempt aimed at advising
both regular and frequent library users of services which the library may perform to meet their

information needs. This service is provided where the users need to do extensive and complex

researches in a timely manner. This service is often referred to as ‘just-for-you’ service because

of its customized and personalized nature. SDI is offered to small group of people because it 5requires a
lot of time and efforts to deliver the service. SDI service requires that the library

interviews a selected user to ascertain the profile of the user, particularly his specific areas of

interest. The librarian then keeps the profile and searches for information on the specific area

of interest on a regular basis. This may involve scanning through the content of new books,

scanning the internet for new issues in the subject matter and scanning newspapers, journals

and other resources to search for relevant current information. Such information which matches

the interest of the user is then sent to the user in a proactive manner. Information is sometimes

re-packaged because rather than sending a whole book, the librarian will send only the relevant

chapter or summarize the information for the user. The electronic environment has made SDI

simple, but it still requires a lot of time from the librarian in order to satisfy the user’s needs.

Indexing and abstracting services

Indexing is the process for providing a guide to the intellectual content of documents in the

library collection while abstracting is the process provides an added value to the document

being sought by providing a summary of the document Aina (2004). Materials acquired by

special libraries are many, devised, technical and specialised in nature, making it necessary for

the librarians to provide finding tools in the form of indexes. The librarian scans through

incoming publications with the view of selecting items most pertinent to user’s interest for the

purpose of abstracting them. The library may prepare its own indexes for local materials such

as pictures, clippings, journal articles, report pamphlet and leaflets and they may purchase
commercial indexes for foreign books.

Reference and information services

Special libraries provide reference services which provides the users of library and information

services an interface with the large body of knowledge to satisfy his information needs.

Reference service range from the provision of desired information to the training and educating 6the
user to identify and locate what he needs (Fisher and Kinch, 2000). In special libraries,

special attention is paid to any user seeking this kind of reference services. Effort are made to

answer the question or supply the information sought. In doing so, the special librarians is quick

about it in order to save the time of the user who is assumed to be very busy. 6

Reference

Adedigba Y.A (1992) “Special Library in Nigeria Libraries 1982 – 1992”. Nigeria Library

and Information Science Review: vol. 10, No. 1&2 May and November. P. 1 – 7.

Adeptun, A. (2012). How Power Challenges Stifle ICT Growth in Nigeria

www.guardiannewsngr.com/index.php...power

Ajibero M.I. (1993) “Librarianship, the mother of all professions”. Leading Libraries and

information centres 1 (3&4)

Alabi, G.A (1989). Computerization of History services in Nigeria: A paper presented at the

meeting of NLA cataloguing and classification section. Held in Kaduna on Monday

th October. P. 5

American Library Association

information services L.T.D P. 41 – 59

Ashikuzzam, (2013). Current Awareness Service (CAS)

Hitt://www.lisbdnet.com/currentawarenes service.

Britanica.com/science library – classification (2009)

Danbaki, C.A, Gadio, D.S & Ndams, S.S (2018). ‘‘Marketing the Service of Special Libraries

In Nigeria Recessed Economy’’ Nigerian Library Association, Kaduna State Chapter

2018 Conference Proceedings. 36-39

Dictionary, Merriam – Webster, Htttp://www. Merriam – Accessed 29tth March, 2022

Echelman, S. (1976). Toward the new special library. Library Journal, 101 (1), P. 91 – 94 7

Conclusion

Nigerian Library Association celebrated her sixty years anniversary in July 2022. Therefore,

the focus of this paper is to reveal how Special Libraries have contributed to development in

Nigeria. The paper presents the concept of development and special libraries and also present

types of special libraries in Nigeria, users, brief historical development of special libraries in

Nigeria and library and information services they provided to support research for

development in Nigeria. The paper revealed that for special libraries in Nigeria to provide

efficient and effective library and information services some have adopted and utilized

Information and communication Technology. Finally. Some challenges still facing special

libraries in the provision of library and information service were revealed and necessary 7