This page aims to share resources of interest that feature perspectives about libraries and their services. Please be advised that perspectives and understandings may vary. Sharing of resources through this guide does not necessarily constitute endorsement.
Where descriptions of published content are extracted from that resource, such representations are placed within quotation marks.
This guide was created by A. Barbour, in conjunction with the Reference Librarians of the Jim Dan Hill Library, April 2025.
For questions or comments, please contact askref@uwsuper.edu
This guide is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0
One way to think about libraries is that they gather and provide access to collections.
Ultimately, Libraries of all types may collect, preserve, and make materials, resources, spaces, and stories available to their communities. One reason for doing this is to enable library users to engage with information, knowledge, and resources that may help us to understand our histories, ourselves, and others.
For a very brief introduction to libraries in general, including (but not limited to) public libraries, see this excerpt from The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation with Mo Rocca on YouTube.
You can take a look at an Infographic from the American Association of School Librarians: "Strong School Libraries Build Strong Students."
Broadly, Libraries exist as part of and in service to their community. A report issued in 2018 from The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) asserts that: "Libraries form an important part of the public service infrastructure . . . They frequently have an explicit mission to serve all members of the community, in particular the vulnerable, and are associated with educational opportunity."
Within an international and historical context, libraries of various types may be broadly understood to support the preservation of knowledge, of expression, and of cultural heritage.
Libraries take accessibility—literally the ability for library community members to access spaces and materials—seriously.
Libraries provide communities with places to be, to study, to gather, and to share. In the 2018 IFLA report cited above, it is also noted that in some settings the library may provide "the only public indoor space in the community."
To serve their communities, Libraries of all types may engage with publishers, vendors, and different technologies to offer services and resources to their patrons for low or no cost to the users. For example:
Libraries also collaborate with one another to extend their ability to serve their communities. This kind of "crowdsourcing" can help to expand library services and may reduce expenditures on individual library budgets.
Libraries provide services and resources to their communities. To further their reach and to stretch often very limited budgets, Libraries often rely on external funding.
Some libraries may have private "friends" groups that serve as a fundraising wing. Such groups may host used book sales, for instance, or support specific needs—including through volunteer work. Examples include:
Libraries provide public services, including but not limited to information resources. Thus, city, state, and federal monies provide key supports for library initiatives.
Libraries and Librarians are a part of their society and of their time and place. Consider these examples from the middle of the twentieth century:
*For an example of how some of this has been understood to work in library and information sciences, consider "Not Censorship But Selection," by Lester Asheim, and first published in 1953