PERPUSTAKAAN IBNU SINA SABK MAAHAD AL TARBIAH AL ISLAMIAH

1. Washington, D.C.’s Library of Congress

Library of Congress (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

If you’ve already watched the movie National Treasure 2, then you’ve already taken a glimpse of this magnificent library. Within the confines of this center, you’ll find all you need to answer your questions about culture, science, philosophy, history, and any other subject matter.

During the War of 1812, a huge portion of the original collection was sold. Fortunately, another 6,457 books were sold to the library by Thomas Jefferson from his very own collection. Composed of four buildings in Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress is such an impressive display of books and a grandly designed structure that it has been used in numerous movies to this date. With a vast book collection at over 30 million and written in just about any language you can think of, the Library of Congress definitely deserves all the fame. The public can visit the library, but only high ranking American officials are allowed to check out books.

2. Moscow’s Institute for Scientific Information Russian Academy of Sciences

Institute for Scientific Information Russian Academy of Sciences (Photo credit: smallritual, Flickr)

This library’s 13.5 million-book collection was established to collate any and all publications done by research facilities and Russian scholars. If you’re looking for data that are related to findings in the field of linguistics, nuclear power, and even gen biology, then this is the right place to start your search. However, you will need to be part of the selected few who are members of this institute. There are certain requirements that must be met, and you must be elected in. As of this day, there are about 500 members of varying membership levels.

3. Beijing’s National Library of China

National Library of China, Beijing (Photo by: shihwy1, Flickr)

The West doesn’t have a monopoly on libraries, for the East also has its share of the world’s largest libraries, among which is the National Library of China. Situated in Beijing and 26.3 million books in its collection, the NLC is sure to give joy to the average bibliophile. Among its hoard of books, you’ll find the world’s greatest and richest compilations of Chinese writings and ancient documents. Founded in the year 1909 and opened doors to the public three years after, the NLC also contains a lot of Qing Dynasty writings as well as a collection of literature inscribed on bones and tortoise shells.

4. Massachusetts’ Harvard University Library

Massachusetts’ Harvard University Library (Photo Credit: California Cthulhu, Flickr)

Compared to all the other universities in the world, Harvard University Library houses the most enormous private collection of books. Established in the year 1638, the Harvard library is considered as America’s oldest. John Harvard was the first to add books to this great collection, which was initially composed of just 400 books. As the years went by, the collection grew to large proportions and keeps on doing so to this day. In the year 1638, the Harvard University Library housed the United States’ most impressive collection of books, but a disastrous fire destroyed that status as it turned a considerable number of books into ashes. Today, the library has a total of over 13 million books displayed in 90 library wings, each dealing with a particular field of study.

5. Ottawa’s National Library of Canada

Ottawa’s National Library of Canada (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

With nearly 19 million books in its collection, the National Library of Canada is also a contender for the biggest library in the world. Founded in 1953, the library was established with the goal of collecting and preserving Canada’s heritage in the form of documents, texts, pictures, and other writings related to the country’s culture and history. You can even find one of North America’s most ancient books in this library. The said book was printed by the 1^st century historian, Flavius Josephus, in the year 1470. If you’re planning to set your sights on the book, however, you’ll have to get permission and be granted with the special viewing privilege as it, along with a number of other books, is kept in safety vaults.

6. St. Petersburg’s Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences

St. Petersburg’s Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

Commissioned by the Russian Federation for the purpose of collecting the country’s books and research findings, the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences has a collection that consists of numerous writings done by Russian writers, scientists, and a host of other significant personalities. It is the legal obligation of all writers and scientific institutions who are publishing works to donate a copy of their writings or findings to the library. This played a huge role in helping the library amass such an impressive 20 million-book collection, although the accuracy of this number isn’t guaranteed today, since a fire that happened at some point in the past destroyed a large chunk of the collection. No one can say just how many of the books were recovered or replaced and how many books were added since then.

7. Frankfurt’s German National Library

Frankfurt’s German National Library (Photo Credit: sethschoen, Flickr)

Housing a collection that consists of approximately 18.5 million books, the German National Library in Frankfurt has done a satisfactory job of painstakingly accumulating every German publication and work, which was the intention behind the library’s founding. The library collects not only works done by the Germans, but also any publication related to the nation. Examples of such works include propaganda from the countries mixed up in the world war. Perhaps one of the most unique features of this library is the branch that displays all the German music records as well as the publications that deal solely with music.

8. Kiev’s Vernadsky National Scientific Library of Ukraine

Kiev’s Vernadsky National Scientific Library of Ukraine (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

With a collection of writings, manuscripts, and books reaching more than 13 million, the Vernadsky National Scientific Library in Kiev is the country’s hub of information. The library was founded in 1918, and a lot of its collection can trace back their roots to the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Apart from the collections of the country’s presidents, the library also houses Ukraine’s scientific archives, scientific works, and cultural compositions and manuscripts. Every year, the library acquires over half a million documents and works.

9. New York Public Library

New York Public Library (Photo Credit: Austin_YeahBaby, Flickr)

Another library worth mentioning is the New York Public Library, which has about 11 million books to its name. Aimed at bringing history and information closer to the general public, the library has plenty of branches scattered throughout New York where people can check out books as they wish. However, there are also branches that are solely for research and where check outs aren’t allowed. Much of the library’s funding over the years was from private individuals and rich philanthropists.

10. London’s British Library

London’s British Library (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

When it comes to the number of items in its collection, the British Library is unparalleled. It has over 150 million items, a lot of which are works circulated in the United Kingdom. The library also has scores of items from other countries and has books written in a multitude of languages. You will also discover that these works can be found in formats ranging from stone inscriptions to digital publications. The growth rate of the British Library is 3 million pieces per year.

History of libraries

The history of the library began with the first effort to organize a collection of documents (recorded knowledge), which happened probably around 1200 BCE. Topics of interest include accessibility of the collection, acquisition of materials, arrangement and finding tools, the book trade, the influence of the physical properties of the different writing materials, language distribution, role in education, rates of literacy, budgets, staffing, libraries for specially targeted audiences, architectural merit, patterns of usage, and the role of libraries in a nation's cultural heritage, and the role of government, church or private sponsorship. Since the 1960s issues of computerization and digitization come to the fore.

Library history is the academic discipline devoted to the study of the history of libraries; it is a subfield of library science and historiography.

Ancient history
At Ugarit in Syria excavations have revealed a palace library, temple library, and two private libraries which date back to around 1200 BCE, containing diplomatic texts as well as poetry and other literary forms. In the 7th century, King Ashurbanipal of Assyria assembled what is considered the first systematically collected library at Nineveh; previous collections functioned more as passive archives.

The legendary Library of Alexandria in Egypt is doubtless the best known example of an early library, flourishing in the 3rd century BCE. It is also possible that the private library of Aristotle was its beginning corpus. The Library was charged with collecting all the world's knowledge, and most of the staff was occupied with the task of translating works onto papyrus paper. The library was open to any scholar. It later burned down, but scholars are not sure when and why that happened.

Middle Age
Catholic monasteries housed the major libraries in medieval Europe. Most books and manuscripts were chosen for their religious value, including versions of the Gospels and books of the Old Testament in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Coptic and Syriac, and also texts of ancient classics.

Renaissance and Early Modern era
The Renaissance stimulated a strong interest in the writings of the Greeks and Romans. Old texts were copied, and copies brought in from Byzantine and Islamic sources. They formed the core of libraries sponsored by erudite nobles.

1750-1900
The role of librarian began to be professionalized starting in the late eighteenth century in Western Europe, in the face of complaints about the jumbled organization of book collections and the ignorance of the keepers. Librarians began seeking the professional goals of being more industrious and effective, with collections that were optimized to promote use and access. Innovation focused on classification and cataloguing. Librarians also explicitly valued a characteristic set of 'librarianly' virtues that included love of order and the willingness to serve.

In the late nineteenth century, Black argues, libraries were at the cutting edge of the bureaucratic innovations necessary for building a modern society. Trained experts provided numerous specialized users access to massive collections of information by organizing the holdings according to a scientific classification. They developed efficient methods of information management in terms of the lending of books and the recording of user activity. New architectural designs emphasize the functionality of the library as a complex machine rather than a piece of art or memorial to the past.

1900 to present
The Cold War was a contest of ideas between the West and the Communist world, so that information, news, and libraries played important role. The United States especially, and also France and Britain opened libraries in major cities across the world, often providing much better access to current information than local facilities. The goal was to operationalize freedom of information as a Western cultural and political value, and to provide up-to-date information on economic, political and cultural affairs. The Communists subsidized political newspapers and conferences but rarely opened libraries because of their embarrassing need to heavily censor most information sources. However they did make an impact by giving many scholarships for librarians to study in the USSR.