Special Libraries in Pakistan

Sadaf RafiqMphil Scholar (PU)

Library & Information Officer

Contents:

What is Special Library Mission and vision of special libraries History of Special Libraries Types of Special Libraries Special Library Association Funding of Special Libraries Services of Special Libraries Special Librarianship

What is Special Library

• SLA defines “Special libraries as those libraries maintained by corporate bodies or institutions, professional association or special government agencies or departments ”

• The term “Special Library” indicates the collection of special kinds of documents, such as, braille books, audiovisual material, books published in any language or it may also means a library meant mainly for a group of special readers, such as, Children’s library, Hospital library, Prison library etc. (Sinha)

Mission and vision of special libraries

• MissionThe special libraries maintain collections and disseminate information in their fields of specialty, and, in co-operation with the library network, provide dynamic collection of information resources based on deep understanding of clients needs and other information searches with information management services.

• VisionSpecial libraries are eligible co-operation partners both in their own field of specialty and in the library network due to their special resources and their expertise.

History of Special Libraries

In 1947, Pakistan had 35 special libraries. But in 1974 , Pakistan had 242 special libraries.(Aslam,1977)

According to another survey, In 1974, Pakistan had 178 special libraries .In1989 there were 331 libraries, and Academic libraries in special subject areas are not included in these statistics. (Anis, 1999)

According to the country report 2008. Pakistan had 500 Special libraries.

Types of Special LibrariesSpecial libraries can be divided into various types. Some of them are given below: Government libraries Research institute Libraries Industrial Libraries Prisoner Libraries Bank Libraries Hospital Libraries Libraries for Blind / Handicapped Media Libraries

Government libraries

Research institute Libraries

National Assembly of Pakistan Library

Federal Judicial Academy's (FJA) Library

Departmental libraries of universities

Pakistan Scientific and Technological Information Center

Punjab Economic and Research Institute (PERI)

Prisoner Libraries

Industrial Libraries

Directorate of Industrial & Mineral Development Punjab (DIMD)

Chamber of Commerce & Industries Karachi Library,

Central Jail Staff Training Institute Lahore

Central Adiala Jail Rawalpindi (Daily Times Report)

Bank Libraries

Hospital Libraries

National Bank of Pakistan Head office Library

State Bank of Pakistan Library

Shalimar Hospital Library Lahore

Sheikh Zayed Hospital Library Lahore

Agha Khan Hospital Library

Libraries for Blind / Handicapped

Media Libraries

The Hatim Alavi Memorial Braille Library

GCU Center for Special Students

Ptv Station Library

Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation Library

Newspaper Archives

Special Library Association

According the past, in 1968, a separate library association called Pakistan Association of Special Libraries (PASLIB) was formed in Karachi. PASLIB was, however, a short lived.

During the short span of its activities, a maiden issue of its newsletter was published in 1968 and few public lectures were also arranged by mid1969.

Currently there is no special library association worked in PakistanBut Pakistan is the part of SLA Asian chapter.

Funding of Special Libraries

In a survey of 51 agricultural libraries of Pakistan, it was found that the percentage of the library budget is 0.03% to nearly 13.00% of the total institutional budget.

In 30% of the institutions, there was no separate budgetary allocation for libraries (Iqbal & Meer 1990).

Services of Special Libraries

• Translation services • Reproduction Facilities• Reference and discovery services• Abstracting and indexing services • Inter library loan• Publishing services (Newsletter)• Current Awareness Services

Special Librarianship

“Special librarians are information resource experts dedicated to putting knowledge to work to attain the goals of their organizations. They are employed most frequently by corporations, private businesses, government agencies, museums, colleges, hospitals, associations and information management consulting firms”

Thanks