Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Circulating Libraries'

In Victorian Britain, music circulating libraries libraries operated by music publishers Novello & Co. and Augener & Co. supported upper- and upper-middle-class patrons in their pursuit of cultural capital that would help them perform their socioeconomic status. Studying these libraries in the context of domestic music-making reveals the economic and social impact of these libraries in the lives of amateur musicians and in the music publishing industry. An analysis of the account books in the Novello Business Archives demonstrates that the direct income that Novello & Co., Ltd.'s Universal Circulating Musical Library generated was negligible at best. Yet the fact that the library continued to be part of the business for over forty years indicates that Novello & Co., Ltd. found it to be profitable in some way. In this case, the library could have helped the publisher to attract customers through branding and advertising, in addition to informing publishing decisions by tracking demand. Catalogs for music circulating libraries, as well as for the publishers who owned them, contain lists of library and publisher inventory and pricing. Studying changes in these catalogs reveals how patrons' tastes changed over time. A case study of violin-piano duets in multiple catalogs confirms a continued preference for continental composers over British composers, and another case study of violin-piano duets by Felix Mendelssohn shows a growing taste for arrangements of pieces originally composed for large ensemble. Changing tastes had an effect not only on what music Victorians performed, but also on what pieces publishers offered, and, ultimately, on works' places in the canon.

This paper was presented as invited plenary keynote address.
This article surveys the cultural record in the digital environments and the current efforts to capture this record and circulate it as knowledge, documents, and collections in memory institutions, and provide a basis for the creation of new knowledge. The goals of digital preservation are interpreted in the light of recent arguments about the role of the humanities in providing access to the complete human experience, of the changing idea of the archive representing that experience, and of the roles of memory institutions in supporting the humanities project. Two sets of current preservation activities are identified and surveyed - web archiving (of national web spaces, web spheres) and curated collections of primary sources from the history web. The emerging forms of interpretive and point-of-view history, invented archives, and digital libraries capturing local history, everyday experience and community memory illustrate how digital media can support interpretive and multi-perspective historiography.

Magister Bibliothecologiae - MBibl
In the field of user studies, very little research has been done on rendering of services in academic libraries. These services need to be examined in depth in order to be able to provide academic library users with more appropriate information services. There is clearly a need to determine what the real needs of academic library users are and how they prefer to look for information. The rapid growth of information technology could have a great influence on service rendering to academic library users.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if book reviews are useful and significant indicators of potential circulation. Major book reviewing sources were studied to determine if some were more useful than others in selecting books which circulate.

This thesis is an examination of the circulation networks and the patterns of collection of Italian printed books in France in the sixteenth century. Although the cultural relations between the Italian and French territory have been studied, a systematic survey to assess the impact of books on the shaping of the French Renaissance has never been attempted. The first section of this study examines the trade routes and networks which facilitated the circulation of Italian printed books across the French territory. Because of the nature of the French early modern book trade, focused primarily on two major centres (Paris and Lyon), a geographical division has been adopted in investigating this phenomenon. Chapter one explores the trade networks existing in sixteenth-century Lyon, from the powerful Compagnie des Libraires to the activity of the libraires italianisants in the second half of the century. Chapter two examines the importance of Italian editions in Paris. Chapter three is devoted to the circulation of Italian books in the provinces and the impact of large regional centres and trade routes on the availability of books locally. Chapter four investigates private networks and their importance in making specific texts available to French readers. The second section of this study investigates the status and importance of Italian printed books within French Renaissance libraries. Chapter five looks into the development of the French Royal library and the role played by Italian items in defining its identity as an institution. Chapter six examines the presence of Italian books in French aristocratic and courtly collections. Chapter seven is devoted to the libraries of the French literary milieu, analysing the extent to which Italian books were cherished as literary exemplars, particularly with regard to vernacular texts. Chapter eight examines the presence of Italian books in professional collections, with particular attention here given to texts in Latin and other scholarly languages imported from Italy. The conclusion draws all of these strands together, looking at the specific role played by Italian culture, through the printed book, on the development of the French Renaissance. A catalogue of about 2,400 Italian printed books with early modern French provenance is included as an appendix volume. This data provides the evidential basis for this study.

The present master thesis is an exploratory qualitative study in academic libraries regarding the transition from the integrated library systems to the next generation integrated library systems or library services platforms and the potential implications in their internal workflows. Nowadays, libraries all over the world are facing up with a number of challenges in terms of acquiring, describing and making available to the public all the resources, both printed and electronic, they manage. In particular, the academic libraries have more reasons to wish to fulfill their users’ needs since the majority of them use the library sources more and more for scientific research and educational purposes.In this study we attempt to explore the phenomenon in the globe using the available literature and to identify the implications in libraries’ workflows and the possible future developments. Moreover, through observation and semi-structured interviews we try to identify the current developments in the Greek context regarding the adoption of next ILS and possible implications in their workflows. Finally, we attempt a comparison between the Greek situation and the international one.

Cette étude vise à aborder la culture des clercs séculiers en Savoie du XVIIIe siècle à 1860, date du rattachement de la Savoie à la France. Une première partie s’intéresse à la circulation des livres des ecclésiastiques. Elle décrit l’utilisation des manuels lors des études au collège chappuisien d’Annecy, puis dans les séminaires et les différentes universités, mais encore lors des conférences et des retraites ecclésiastiques. Par ailleurs, les livres sont achetés, prêtés à des collègues ou à des laïques, comme l’attestent de trop rares livres de raison retrouvés. Ce sont les testaments qui montrent que les bibliothèques, longuement constituées par héritages, achats tout au long d’une vie, sont ensuite le plus souvent transmises à des membres de la famille également hommes d’Eglise ou dispersées au profit de l’évêque, d’un vicaire ou de différentes institutions, ce qui prouve l’existence de réseaux intellectuels. Les livres relient donc le monde des morts au monde des vivants. La deuxième partie montre qu’ils sont aussi au cœur des débats intellectuels, ce qui explique que leur diffusion soit contrôlée par les autorités religieuses. Les livres sont ainsi au centre des réflexions concernant le protestantisme, le jansénisme, le mouvement des Lumières, l’épisode révolutionnaire de 1792, puis des enjeux de la modernité du XIXe siècle. La Savoie, frontière de catholicité, apparaît alors comme un relais original dans les processus de maturation et de diffusion des idées entre le royaume d’Italie, la France et l’Europe. La troisième partie propose à partir d’un corpus de bibliothèques, essentiellement du XVIIIe siècle, complété par des legs faits au XIXe siècle au grand séminaire de Chambéry, une classification des lecteurs comprenant différents types de desservants, des chanoines et des évêques. En croisant les différents centres d’intérêts en rapport avec la théologie et les sciences profanes, des identités cléricales se dessinent, des facteurs de cohésion, des signes de curiosité intellectuelle apparaissent et montrent que le clergé séculier savoyard est à la fois dépositaire et diffuseur auprès des fidèles d’une culture élargie et qu’il n’est pas à l’écart des évolutions de son époque
The aim of the following study is to tackle the notion of knowledge and culture among Savoie’s secular clergy, from the 18th century to 1860, when Savoie was annexed by France. The first part focuses on the circulation of clergymen’s books. It depicts the way books are used by scholars at the Collège Chappuisien of Annecy, then in seminaries and different universities, as well as for lectures or ecclesiastical retreats. Besides, books are bought, passed on to colleagues and laymen, as one can learn from the very few commonplace books left. One can read in wills how libraries, whose volumes have been inherited or purchased over the years, are , most of the time, subsequently transmitted to relatives that are men of the cloth too, or scattered to the benefit of bishops, vicars or different institutions, which tends to prove the existence of intellectual networks. Books can thus be said to connect the world of the dead to that of the living. The second part shows that they are also at the very heart of intellectual debates, which explains why their circulation was controlled by religious authorities. Books are thus central points of reflection over Protestantism, Jansenism, the Enlightenment, the 1792 revolutionary episode and eventually what is at stake in 19th century modernity. Savoie, as a catholic boarder, appears as some original basis in the maturing process of ideas as well as their circulation between the kingdom of Italy, France and Europe. The third part, based on a corpus of 18th century libraries mostly and 19th century legacies to Chambéry’s Grand Séminaire, offers a classification of readers, among whom various types of parish priests, canons and bishops. By confronting the different centers of interest related to theology and profane science, some clerical identities are taking shape, factors of cohesion and signs of intellectual curiosity appear, showing that to the believers, Savoie’s secular clergy both keeps and spreads a broader culture and that its members are in no way cut off from the evolutions of their time

Gegenstand der Untersuchung ist die Rekonstruktion und Analyse der Mainzer Karmelitenbibliothek von ihren frühesten archivalischen Zeugnissen in den 30er-Jahren des 15. Jahrhunderts bis zur Aufhebung des Klosters im Jahr 1802. Das Fehlen historischer Kataloge und eine lückenhafte archivalische Überlieferung zur Klostergeschichte bestimmten die Methodik der Analyse, deren Basis die Exemplare des Rekonstruktionsbestandes darstellten.(Hauptbestand in Mainz, Streubestände in Deutschland, Frankreich und den USA). Per autoptischer Ersterhebung konnten bislang 1589 Bände aus Mainzer Karmelitenprovenienz ermittelt werden, darunter 39 Handschriften und 289 Inkunabeln und Frühdrucke bis 1520. Die Arbeit steht im Forschungszusammenhang der Rekonstruktion klösterlicher Büchersammlungen, deren Ziel die De-Fragmentierung zerstreuter historischer Ensembles und die Bergung verschütteter Wissensräume geistlicher Gemeinschaften über ihre Bibliotheken ist. Sie macht sich Erkenntnisse, Methoden und Ergebnisse exemplarspezifischer Forschung zu eigen und leistet einen Beitrag zur anthropologischen Bibliotheksgeschichtsschreibung. Der Untersuchung lag das erkenntnisleitende Interesse zugrunde, die Sammlungsphysiognomie der Karmelitenbibliothek als Quelle für interdisziplinäre Forschungen wieder zugänglich zu machen. Im Dreischritt von Spurensuche, Spurensicherung und Spurendeutung wurde der Rekonstruktionsbestand auf Titel- und auf Exemplarebene analysiert und nach Verdichtung und Reflex des spirituellen und intellektuellen Profils in der Karmelitenbibliothek gefragt und geprüft, inwieweit sich klösterliche Wissensräume und Vernetzungen über Buchbesitz und Buchgebrauch in der erhaltenen Bibliothek abbildeten. Dabei standen die besonderen Wachstumsparameter einer mendikantischen Gebrauchsbibliothek, ihre Bestandszusammensetzung und die Strukturen der Bibliotheksverwaltung im Zentrum der Analyse.
The subject of this study is the reconstruction and analysis of the Mainz Carmelite library from the beginning of the 15th century (documentation of the earliest archival material) until the closure of the convent as a result of the secularisation in 1802. Lacking a catalogue and considering the existence of only few documents, the research project is mainly based on the surving copies once belonged to the convent: until today are registered 1589 copies with the provenance „Mainz Carmelites“, including 39 manuscripts and 289 incunables and early printed books until 1520. The study intends to be a contribution for the reconstruction of monastic libraries with the aim to unify surviving fragmentary collections. The known copies of the former Carmelite library have been looked into for their bibliographic and copy-specific records in order to get an idea of the intellectual and spiritual knowledge. Provenance research based on both personal as well as institutional ownership was done, including also information on circulation, acquisition and handling of the material in and outside monastic life.

“Circulating Knowledges: Literature and the Idea of the Library in Renaissance England” pairs literary texts and libraries to illustrate how literary creation and library building in England from 1500 to 1700 were deeply invested in one another. The history of English Renaissance libraries has generally been analyzed from the viewpoints of religious history and historiography, seen by scholars as a story of Protestant librarians attempting to preserve (or invent) a history of Protestant England. Many literary critics —citing Thomas Bodley’s notorious distaste for “stage plaies”—have typically reduced institutional libraries to elitist boogeymen hostile to popular or vernacular literature. Revising these narratives, this dissertation brings together a large corpus, including works by Thomas More, John Lyly, Edmund Spenser, Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, and Margaret Cavendish, to illustrate how literary depictions of England’s fledgling libraries shaped their creation and development, while the practices of these inchoate libraries in turn influenced literary texts. “Circulating Knowledges” advances its argument on several fronts. First, I show that developments (or a perceived lack of development) in library organization, access, and use appeared in literary texts, which often depicted literary libraries in response to these developments. Second, I home in on moments when literary texts that seem not at all interested in libraries become unexpectedly fruitful texts through which to develop literary thinking about libraries. In the process of excavating this literary interest in libraries, I demonstrate that Renaissance literature concerns itself not only with depicting, commenting on, or objecting to the developments in library creation happening during the period, but also in imagining alternative possibilities for how libraries might function, conceptions of a library that often outstripped what was materially possible in the period: these conceptions I term “the idea of the library.” In detailing literature’s preoccupation with developments in Renaissance library systems, I offer new perspectives on the period’s literary attitudes toward the creation, transmission, and protection of knowledge, all questions which the building—or imagining—of a library brings to the forefront.

Conference proceedings from the Living the Future Conference, April 21-24, 1998, University of Arizona Libraries, Tucson, AZ.
This presentation outlines the planning, design and implementation processes used to redesign the Circulation and Reserve Units of the Woodruff Library at Emory University. Managing the changes resulting from the redesign will also be described. The presenters will highlight what they learned from their successes and failures throughout the 2+ year period.

Poster presentation from the Living the Future 6 Conference, April 5-8, 2006, University of Arizona Libraries, Tucson, AZ.
In the past several years, circulation and shelving statistics as well as the usage of print reserves have declined. At the University of Arizona Libraries, we are moving from a traditional mediated service environment towards increased user self-sufficiency, where the basic circulation transactions become unmediated. Come learn how we have implemented open holds, reserves, self check-in, streaming audio and soon streaming video. Learn how we have consolidated services into a single desk, the challenges we faced and competencies required to create a new future for your circulation staff.

碩士
國立中興大學
圖書資訊學研究所
98
The department of circulation in the library is the first place to face users; thus, the strength and weakness of circulation service has much impact on users’ impressions as well as the image of the library. The evaluation of service quality, which is user-oriented, can help the library staff realize users’ opinions. To meet the efficiency, the study integrates LibQUAL+® and the features of circulation service in university libraries in Taiwan. The purposes of this study are the following: to set the evaluation criteria for circulation service quality in university libraries in Taiwan, to offer suggestions for the measurement method. It is hoped that this study will render university libraries references of evaluating circulation service quality. 　This study is conducted by literature analysis and interviews to draft the evaluation criteria for circulation service quality, then by questionnaire surveys to ensure the one. This research also proposes suggestions for the measurement method through examining the quality of top one university library on “The Quantity of Annual Borrowers” in 2009. The results indicated that (1) the evaluation criteria of circulation service quality in university libraries in Taiwan contain four dimensions and thirty-eight items ; (2) LibQUAL+® , a scale of 1 to 9 in three columns levels, is not suitable for university libraries in Taiwan; the scale of 1 to 5 in two columns (perceived, desired service levels) is recommended instead ; (3) some criteria are not approved by subjects is due to their low expectations for library service rather than ignorance. 　According to the results, there are five suggestions: (1) The library should keep amending the evaluation criteria of service quality ; (2) The library should regularly implement the circulation service quality assessment ; (3) The library should employ the Internet and paper tool to execute the appraisal ; (4) The library should value the content of evaluation criteria ; (5) The library should build multiple platforms which enable users to express comments and complaints anytime.

Knowledge is now considered the most important organizational resource, surpassing other resources like land and capital. It has, therefore, been acknowledged that knowledge can play an important role in ensuring an organization’s competitive edge. The purpose of this study was to investigate if knowledge sharing is being used to improve service delivery at the National University of Lesotho’s Thomas Mofolo Library. The researcher held the view that Librarians at Thomas Mofolo Library have different sets of skills which, if combined, could improve service delivery. By not sharing and retaining this existing wealth of knowledge, the researcher claimed that when librarians retire or resign from work, they will certainly take with them the knowledge they possess and the result of this knowledge loss is that the Library may be plagued by an inability to learn from the past experiences, which leads to reinvented wheels, unlearned lessons and the pattern of repeated mistakes. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed in the case study design in order to allow for multiple methods of data collection. Data were collected by means of questionnaires and interviews. Questionnaires were administered to all librarians who were available at the time and purposive sampling was used to determine interview participants. Out of the 25 questionnaires administered, 15 were returned, providing a response rate of 60%. The data collected by means of questionnaires was processed using Microsoft Access and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software (Version 17). The results of analysis were exported into Microsoft Excel for visual presentation and reporting of the results. The data from the interview sessions was analyzed manually by content analysis, using the notes that were taken by the researcher from the respondents during the interview sessions. The findings pointed to the fact that knowledge sharing does occur at TML, although mostly in an informal manner. This was largely due to a number of impediments such as lack of trust and the absence of motivations and rewards. The study concluded by recommending a number of initiatives that could be implemented in order to retain knowledge within the Library. The recommendations included developing a knowledge management strategy and formalizing knowledge sharing by formulating the desired policies.
Information Science
M.A. (Information Science)

This study investigated the factors, best practice, advantages and disadvantages that influence the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) self-help circulation services for service delivery by South African academic libraries with specific emphasis on the University of South Africa (Unisa) Library. Unisa Library Services is the only library service in South Africa that has implemented a fully-fledged RFID self-help circulation service. There must therefore be reasons why other libraries in South Africa have not implemented this type of service. Accordingly, a need was identified to investigate the aspects that should be considered before a library decides to implement such a circulation service. There was also a need to identify the factors, best practice, advantages and disadvantages that influence the use of RFID self-help circulation services. The study gives a brief overview of RFID technology and its use in libraries internationally with specific emphasis on its use for self-help circulation purposes. Through a literature study, certain factors, best practice, advantages and disadvantages that influence the use of RFID self-help circulation services were identified. The identified factors, best practice, advantages and disadvantages were subsequently used to compile questionnaires to obtain information from Unisa library users (students and staff). Only Unisa staff and students who were situated close to Unisa campuses with RFID self-help circulation services were included in the study. During the analysis of the data collected additional factors, best practice, advantages and disadvantages were identified. Recommendations were compiled regarding the factors, best practice, advantages and disadvantages that influence the use of RFID self-help circulation services. These recommendations are meant as a guide for South African libraries when making decisions on the possible implementation and use of RFID self-help circulation services.
Information Science
M.A. (Information Science)