Types of Libraries

Libraries differ less in their shelves than in their purpose. A national library keeps a country’s published record whether anyone asks for it or not. A public library serves whoever lives nearby. A university library supports a curriculum. A corporate or hospital library answers a narrow set of questions quickly. The same word covers all of them.

This section sorts them out, including the less obvious ones: bookmobiles that reach villages and camps, micro libraries in a repurposed phone box, prison and hospital libraries, seed and tool libraries, and lending collections of things rather than texts.

The overview article is Types of Libraries. From there, Libraries of the World gives particular examples, Digital Library covers the type with no address, and The Modern Library explains why the boundaries between types keep blurring.

Categories are tools for thinking, not rules. Plenty of real libraries sit in two of these at once, and the useful thing is to see which purpose is driving the decisions.