Most students are not well aware about the types of books kept in a standard school library. Here I am providing a brief introduction to the different types of books and what to find in them.
Traditionally, the information sources in a library are classified into:
– Documentary sources
– Non-documentary sources
Documentary sources are the reading materials in different formats, and non-documentary sources are the many formal and informal channels through which information flows (universities, personal contacts). Here I am concentrating on the documentary sources. On the basis of the nature of information, these are divided into:
– Primary
– Secondary
– Tertiary
But for simplification, let me make a classification on the basis of reading materials usually found in a KV library.
Reading materials in a school library can be broadly categorized into:
– Books
– Periodicals
The difference between the two is that the latter has a periodicity and contains relatively current information. Eg. Education today (Monthly), Employment News (Weekly), Sangam (Quarterly), etc.
Books can be further classified into:
– Textbooks
– Monographs
– Reference books
Textbooks contain information that has been tested and reviewed by experts in the field. They are meant for readers who want to acquire a deeper knowledge on a subject. Eg. NCERT prescribed textbooks, grammar books, essay books, etc.
Monographs are, more often than not, a single unit containing information on a single subject, or one or two related subjects. Monographs usually have a single author who follows a uniform train of thoughts throughout the book. Eg. books related to a specific topic like ornithology, books of fiction, biographies, etc.
Reference books can be
– Dictionaries
– Encyclopaedias
– Yearbooks
– Atlases
– Directories
Everybody is familiar about general dictionaries. But there are subject dictionaries also – dictionaries listing the words related to a specific subject like physics. In a library you can find biographical dictionaries (Eg. who’s who), geographical dictionaries. Also, there are thesaurus (dictionaries giving synonyms and antonyms) dictionaries dealing with phrases, etc.
Like dictionaries, encyclopaedias can be either general, or related to a specific subject, place, person or time.
Yearbooks can be classified as periodicals, since they have a periodicity (Yearly). But they contain a lot of information on a variety of subjects. They chiefly deal with events that have taken place in a specific period, usually a year. Eg. Manorama Yearbook.
Atlases deal with maps. But they also contain a lot of statistical information of a geographical or economic nature.
Directories are lists, like Directory of Universities in India.
All the above reference books are nowadays available in the CD-ROM format also, which helps in the easy and quick location of specific information. But for getting extensive information on a subject, it is usually wise to depend on a hard copy.
Library Blog of KV Adoor 