Library Comparison Assessment Answer

Compare the library in terms of the clients they intend to serve, their collections and their services to users.

1) Library and Archives Canada
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/
2) Library of Parliament
https://lop.parl.ca/About/Library/VirtualLibrary/OrganizationOverview-e.asp
3) McGill University Library
https://www.mcgill.ca/library/about
4) Library, The Canadian Academy of Dental Health & Community Sciences
https://www.canadianacademyofdentalhygiene.ca/library-resources

Introduction

Knowledge is wisdom. From ancient time reading has been considered as is the most effective way towards meaningful learning and education. Libraries serve an important role for the society. People from different walks of life access the library facilities time to time as per their convenience to gather more information and knowledge (Rasul and Singh, 2017). This assignment is going to explore the various characteristics and services available in the prominent libraries. Five libraries have been evaluated here compare the kind of services they offer and the variety of books available for the readers. An initiative has been taken to understand the similarities and dissimilarities between the various features and functions that these libraries offer. 

Client Services

The chosen five libraries cater to different types of readers. In the words of Kail and Cavanaugh, (2018), as far as the characteristics of the books they offer to the readers, these libraries have different tastes of collections. The Library and Archives of Canada (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/) offer resilient range of books on heritage and cultural history of the modern civilization. On the other hand, the Library of Parliament (https://lop.parl.ca/About/Library/VirtualLibrary/OrganizationOverview-e.asp) offers books and documents on the Canadian Parliament and the historic pieces of evidence on the democracy. They cater the range of authoritative, precise and authentic information for the Parliament. Whereas the McGill University Library (https://www.mcgill.ca/library/about) offers incredible opportunity to enrich the research work with its valuable reference books to the students, researchers, professors and staff of the university. The Library, The Canadian Academy of Dental Health & Community Sciences (https://www.canadianacademyofdentalhygiene.ca/library-resources) supports the CADH students, researchers, professors and employees to pursue important information and critical thinking. Whereas the City Hall library, which is a branch of the Toronto Public Library, caters to the common clients like the local residents, clubs and other institutions (https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMLIB032&R=LIB032). It has been observed that all the five libraries have the definite set of client members who often refer the various resources from these libraries as and when required.

Collection of Books 

All these libraries try to maintain the best set of references and books for their respective clients. Canadian heritage, social importance, and cultural diversity have a prime focus towards the collection of books. The variety and volume of books and references are quite astonishing here. The Library of Parliament is having a large variety of books and reference documents on the various Canadian parliamentary affairs. The democratic movement associated with Canada and it socio-political journey are in the primary collection here. Here, the range of books is precise but the historical importance is quite immense. The McGill University Library offers various research and scholarly articles, journals and books for the clients. The high volume of diversity in the collection of books is quite praiseworthy. The library of The Canadian Academy of Dental Health & Community Sciences offered valuable books primarily on the dental health care, medical journals entity search documentations. The City Hall library rather tries to maintain a wider variety of novels, fictions, thrillers, and adventurous books for the neighboring readers (Soria, Fransen and Nackerud, 2017). The City Hall library is having a comparatively lesser range of collection of books in comparison to the other for prominent libraries.

Service Offerings 

The first four libraries have their own unique services, which they offer to the clients while the fifth local library offers typical but useful services. The different types of unique services they offer make them very valuable to the clients and public. The Library and Archives of Canada offer a multitude of services such as digilabs, appointment with reference specialists, genealogy and academic research aids, which are extremely useful for any student or client. The Library of Parliament offers parliamentary information research, document resource research, and business support services, which help individuals in the bureaucratic and business sectors. The McGill University Library offers various some unique online and technological services like software services, scanning articles or pages, accessing online resources, equipment help along with services like loaning books, booking rooms, and group project services (McGill Library, 2018). The library of The Canadian Academy of Dental Health & Community Sciences offer the public services based in the dental hygiene and related fields, which are extremely helpful for students pursuing studies in the dental, and doctorate field as well as individuals wanting to acquire knowledge in these fields. The City Hall library offers comparatively low yet useful services, which are very helpful to the public and students.

Identifying the Similarities and Dissimilarities

In terms of client services, all the five libraries provide excellent services to the clients and the public. They take extra care and makes sure to cater to the needs of their clients so that they are satisfied with the services of the libraries. However, in terms of Book Collection, the five libraries differ a lot. The Library and Archives of Canada provide books on mostly the culture and heritage of the modern history while The Library of Parliament offers books and documents on the Canadian Parliament and the historic pieces of evidence on the democracy (Lop.parl.ca., 2018). The McGill University Library offers quality scholarly books and articles on literatures while The Canadian Academy of Dental Health & Community Sciences Library provide Books, Articles and Research Papers on the Dentistry and Doctorate fields to help the students pursuing a career in the Dental field. Meanwhile the City Hall library offers a versatile variety of books but on a comparatively lesser range to help the public. In terms of Service Offerings, the four libraries provide their own unique services to their clients in their respective fields while the City Hall library offers typical average services to the public.

Conclusion

From the above gathered relevant information, it is evident that these five libraries are very resourceful and extremely helpful to the clients and the public. The evaluation of these five libraries conclude that they offer very high quality and unique services to the clients and despite offering books from different specific fields, they offer a large collection of books and articles which help in the enrichment and enhancement of an individual’s knowledge.

Reference 

CADH. (2018). Library and Resources | Dental Hygienist School in Canada. [online] Available at: https://www.canadianacademyofdentalhygiene.ca/library-resources [Accessed 4 Feb. 2018].
Collectionscanada.gc.ca. (2018). Bienvenue au site Web Bibliothèque et Archives Canada / Welcome to the Library and Archives Canada website. [online] Available at: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/ [Accessed 4 Feb. 2018].
Kail, R.V. and Cavanaugh, J.C., 2018. Human development: A life-span view. Cengage Learning.
Lop.parl.ca. (2018). About the Library. [online] Available at: https://lop.parl.ca/About/Library/VirtualLibrary/OrganizationOverview-e.asp [Accessed 4 Feb. 2018].
McGill Library. (2018). About the Library. [online] Available at: https://www.mcgill.ca/library/about [Accessed 4 Feb. 2018].
Rashid, M.H. ed., 2017. Power electronics handbook. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Rasul, A. and Singh, D., 2017. The role of academic libraries in facilitating postgraduate students’ research. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 15(3), pp.75-84.
Rubin, R.E., 2017. Foundations of library and information science. American Library Association.
Soria, K.M., Fransen, J. and Nackerud, S., 2017. Beyond books: The extended academic benefits of library use for first-year college students. College & Research Libraries, 78(1).
Toronto Public Library. (2018). City Hall. [online] Available at: https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMLIB032&R=LIB032 [Accessed 4 Feb. 2018].