Unit 6

LIBRARIES
I Pre-reading.
Task 1) In pairs, discuss the following questions:
1) What is the difference between academic and public libraries?
2) What does the term hybrid collection in the context of a library stand for?
Task 2) Scan the text Academic Libraries and underline the following expressions:
accrediting, affiliated, ventures, spine, off-site, vendors, supplement, laments, endeavor,
redress
II Reading. Read the text below and do the comprehension check task.
Academic Libraries
1 The mission of academic libraries is more focused than that of public libraries: they
serve the curricular and research needs of students, faculty and staff of their parent
institutions. They collect materials in direct relation to academic programs, with
increasing depth for undergraduate, masters and doctoral courses. As new curricula and
programs are established, and as existing programs expand into new areas, library
collections are expected to expand proportionately. Among the fundamental criteria for
accrediting academic programs is the adequacy of library collections to support the
curricula. Major research universities with extensive graduate programs and research
facilities necessarily have more substantial library collections and services than do small
colleges that focus on undergraduate education.
2 Even the most extensive academic library collection cannot serve all the needs of a
university community, so academic libraries rely on cooperative arrangements for
interlibrary lending and document delivery. They also rely on each other for specialized
collections. If one library in region has an extensive collection in one subject area, such
as musicology, Latin America, or the history of medicine, other regional academic
libraries may maintain only basic collections for those topics and build depth in other
areas instead. Libraries borrow from each other and offer access and borrowing privileges
to members of affiliated institutions. Library users can observe the advantages of
cooperative ventures in borrowing resources and in using the services of neighboring
libraries. Less apparent to users is that they gain access to a larger body of resources
when partner libraries share costs of expensive materials and decide jointly on which
institutions which institutions will acquire, preserve, and conserve unique materials.

3 By now, the operations and services of most academic libraries in developed countries
are highly automated. Integrated systems track materials from the time of ordering
through receipt, payment, cataloging, physical processing (bar codes, spine labels, etc.),
shelving, circulation, off-site storage, conservation, and any other handling or disposition.
Metadata are exchanged online between library catalog system and bibliographic utilities.
Orders and payment may be exchanged between libraries and vendors through electronic
data interchange (EDI), based on international standards. Integrated library systems are
linked to other electronic resources, such as databases of abstracting and indexing
services and digital libraries of text, images, and other contests.
4 Academic libraries provide integrated access to hybrid collections of print and
electronic resources. A common electronic gateway may enable access to a wide array of
system and services. From computers in the library, in offices, in dormitories, in homes,
in hotels or elsewhere, members of the university community can identify what resources
are owed by their institutions, what is on order, and which physical materials currently
are on loan to other borrowers. Some systems enable users to request items for delivery to
their offices, place holds, extend the due dates for borrowed items, and request materials
from elsewhere. Services often include digital libraries maintained on campus networks
and on digital libraries located elsewhere. University libraries may pay for subscriptions
to external services and provide access through a library or university gateway. Access
privileges often are authenticated by domain name or other means. In this way, users are
saved the trouble of maintaining passwords for individual systems and services. Users
may be searching a rich array of digital collections without realizing that these are not
publicly available resources or that their library is paying for their access rights. Many
academic libraries are expanding their services to include electronic publishing, telelearning, distance-dependent courses, and other information technology applications for
higher education.
5 Users of academic libraries are profoundly affected by the shifts in scholarly
publishing. The prices of scholarly journals have increased at far higher rates than other
library budgets or inflation, resulting in substantial decreases in libraries purchasing
power, canceling of journal subscriptions, and reductions of purchasing of monographs.
Academic disciplines are affected to varying degrees. Science and technology disciplines
rely more heavily on scholarly journals than on monographs, and a growing proportion of
their information resources are available in electronic form. In contrast, the humanities
and social sciences rely on a mix of serial and monographic resources and fewer of their
resources are available, but these supplement rather than substitute for collections of
materials in print, microfilm, audio, and video formats, collections of photographs and
other images, archives and other collections of unique materials.
6 The reaction of the academic community to the changes in their library services is
mixed. Many items previously available only in print form, such as catalogues, journals,
and indexing and abstracting services, are now available online and are more convenient
to use. They appreciate the wide array of new resources available in electronic form, from
data sets to digitized manuscripts. However, the majority of academic community
laments the decreasing availability of current journals and scholarly monographs,

whether in print or in electronic form, because of escalating costs. Most proposals for
new models of scholarly communications endeavor to redress the loss of access to
materials of all types, in addition to extending access to new forms of publication.
(adapted from: From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure)
III Reading comprehension. Match the paragraph number with the heading that best
summarizes its main idea.
a) The response of scholars __________
b) Access to a wide array of system and services ___________
c) Relationship of academic disciplines and scholarly resources __________
d) The mission of academic libraries ___________
e) Interlibrary cooperation ______________
f) Highly automated operations and services ____________
IV Vocabulary in context.
Task 1) Using the context clues, match the words from Task 2 in the Pre-reading section
with their definitions below.
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
g)
h)
i)
j)

accredit, v.
affiliate, v.
venture n.
spine, n.
off-site, adv.
vendor, n.
supplement, v.
lament, v.
endeavor, v.
redress, v.
1) _________________ a new activity, project, business, etc., that typically
involves risk
2) ________________ a business that sells a particular type of product
3) ________________ to seriously or continually try to do (something)
4) ________________ away from the place of a business or activity
5) ________________ to correct (something that is unfair or wrong)
6) ________________ to express sorrow, regret, or unhappiness about
something
7) ________________ to closely connect (something or yourself) with or to
something (such as a program or organization) as a member or partner
8) _________________ the narrow stiff part which the pages and covers of a
book are attached to
9) _________________ to say that something is good enough to be given
official approval

10) ________________ to add something to (something) in order to make it

complete
Task 2) Finish the following sentences using your own ideas.
1) He supplements his income by_________________________________________.
2) A joint business venture is____________________________________________.
3) The medical school is affiliated with____________________________________.
4) _____________________________________________________ is done off-site.
5) She lamented over__________________________________________________.
6) The association only accredits programs that_____________________________.
7) A book's spine often has_____________________________________________.
8) The school endeavors to_____________________________________________.
9) It is time to redress_________________________________________________.
10) Vendors of computer parts____________________________________________.
Task 3) Pair work: scan the text Academic libraries and find the words and expressions
used with nouns library, collection and resources. Write them down and translate them
into Croatian.
Task 4) Find the corresponding English words and expressions in the text. The paragraph
numbers are given in brackets to help you find them.
sluiti svim potrebama (2)
nudti privilegije pristupa i posuivanja (2)
datoteke koje nude saetke i indekse (3)
produiti posuenu knjigu (4)
znaajno smanjenje kupovne moi knjinica (5)
irok raspon novih sredstava (6)
Task 5) Using the vocabulary covered in previous tasks, translate the following
paragraph into English.
Akademske su knjinice spojene s akademskim institucijama te ispunjavaju dvije
temeljne i komplementarne namjene: podupiru odobrene nastavne programe i
omoguavaju istraivanja studenata i fakultetskog osoblja. Mnoge knjinice danas imaju
samo jednu specijaliziranu kolekcija iz odreenog podruja, a pristup drugim
kolekcijama i mogunost posuivanja nudi se lanovima povezanih ustanova. Veina
knjinica danas omoguava pristup hibridnim kolekcijama, odnosno kolekcijama koje
sadravaju i tiskane i elektronike materijale.
V Vocabulary development

Task 1) Read the borrowing rules of a university library. In pairs, discuss the bolded
expressions and explain in your own words what they mean.

Borrowing
(Loan Periods)
The normal loan period for library items is 3 week loan
In-demand items may be set as 1 week loan
Keep your receipt safe when you borrow items. This shows the dates when they are due
for return
High demand titles will have a 24 hour loan copy which is not renewable
Short Loan Collection items may be collected from the counter and borrowed for 24
hours or less and are not renewable
Reference items, and Journals, are for use in the Library only
You cannot have books issued if you owe fines.
(adapted from http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/services/lending.htm)

Task 2) Go to the web page of Anglia Ruskin University:

http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/induction/induction.htm
Check the library charges and fines for overdue items as well as the rules for interlibrary
loans. Write them down.
VI Critical thinking.
Task 1) It is commonly known that professions are usually associated with more or less
predictable stereotypes. For example, teachers are often thought to be planned, scheduled,
practical, conservative, etc.
Which words and expressions in this list would you choose to portray a stereotypical
librarian? Add some more words and expressions, if necessary.
inwardly directed/outgoing
quiet concentration/interaction
reflective/active
think, then speak/speak, then think
focus on thoughts, ideas/focus on people/things
Task 2) Due to the information revolution cause by the Internet and other information
carriers, the stereotypical image of librarians has been changing. Discuss the following
issues:
1. How have the role and importance of a librarian changed in contrast to their
roles in the past?
2. What has influenced these changes?
3. What are the contemporary challenges and demands that librarians are faced
with?
VII Writing Summaries

Task 1) According to your experience, in which situations do undergraduates have to

write summaries or drafts of written materials? What purpose do the summaries serve?
Task 2) Study the basic requirements for writing academic summaries.
Writing summary assignments is an essential component of academic English classes.
Their primary function is to get the students grasp the main idea of a written text and
show the global understanding of the written material.
According to Swales and Feak (1994) an academic summary needs to meet the following
basic requirements:
1) it should provide a balanced overview of the original text (no parts should be
given priority)
2) the information should be summarized objectively (with no evaluative comments
by the author)
3) the writer of the summary should present the information concisely
4) the writer of the summary should write in his or her own words as much as
possible
The length of the summary depends on the length of the type and size of the text. It can
vary from one page (in case of research articles), a paragraph or even 1-2 sentences (in
case of summarizing a paragraph or an abstract).
Paraphrasing (Jordan, 1999)
When summarizing, it is important not to copy the wording used in the original text. One
way to achieve this is to paraphrase or restate in your own words the original ideas. This
can be done by:
a) using the synonymous expressions:
It is claimed that
= It is argued that
b) changing the word class (verbs to nouns):
It is highly important to help students with learning difficulties.
= Helping students with learning difficulties is of utmost importance.
c) changing the verb forms (e.g. from active to passive voice, but be aware of the focus):
A group of scientists from Harvard University conducted the research
= The research was conducted by a group of scientists from Harvard University

However, when writing summaries the most important thing is to understand the text
completely, read it through, put it aside, and then try to use your own words and write
down the main idea(s) of the original text.

Task 3) Paraphrase the following sentences considering the above instructions. The
beginnings of the sentences have been suggested to help you paraphrase. You may
suggest further ways to paraphrase the ideas expressed in the sentences below.
1) One of the aims of academic libraries is to collect materials in direct relation to
academic programs.
Academic libraries __________________________________________________
2) Libraries offer access and borrowing privileges to members of affiliated
institutions.
Access ___________________________________________________________
3) The operations and services of most academic libraries in developed countries are
highly automated.
Most academic libraries _____________________________________________
4) Many academic libraries are expanding their services to include various
information technology applications for higher education.
Many academic libraries are __________________________________________

How to begin a summary?

The first sentence of a summary typically contains the information on the source of the
original text and the main idea. Most often, the present simple tense of the verb is used.
Study the following ways of opening a summary.
a) In James Richardson's article 'State of the Art Library', _________________ (main
idea).
b) According to James Richardson in his article 'State of the Art Library',_____________
(main idea).
c) As noted by James Richardson in his article 'State of the Art Library', _____________
(main idea)
d) James Richardson's article 'State of the Art Library' discusses ___________________
(main idea)
e) Author James Richardson in his article 'State of the Art Library'
states/claims/argues/reports/maintains/suggests that ______________________ (main
idea)
Reporting verbs: Function and strength
When writing summaries of the texts whose authors are known, we frequently use
reporting verbs to provide the objective overview of the main ideas. However, the degree

of objectivity of reporting verbs varies. Some of them are more neutral, while the others
tend to be more evaluative, i.e. they may express writers' attitudes towards the ideas
expressed in the original text. Decide whether the verbs in the box below are objective or
rather evaluative.
discuss, describe, claim, suggest, observe, point out, reveal, imply, maintain, state, assert,
explain, demonstrate, present, show, argue, presume, conclude, say, find, remark

Some Useful Tips For Writing Summaries

Task 4) When writing summaries certain guidelines need to be followed. Decide whether
the following statements are true or false. Correct the false ones.
1) Skim read the text to get the general idea.
2) Read the text carefully, and make notes on the most relevant information
(consider the topic sentences, key words, etc).
3) Keep the original words as much as possible, i.e. do not use synonymous
expressions.
4) Try to remember all the details, examples, etc and include them in your summary.
5) Avoid adding your personal opinions.
6) Include the relevant information about the source material (the author, the title of
the text, journal or book, the date of publication)
7) Make sure the summary reads smoothly. Use discourse markers. You do not want
a list of sentences that do not flow.
Task 5) Each of the following passages summarizes the first paragraph of the text
'Academic Libraries'. Decide which of them would fit the above instructions best.
Explain your choice. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the summaries given.
1) According to the text 'Academic Libraries', the primary aim of university libraries
is to reinforce the academic courses of study with the appropriate amount,
relevance and quality of library resources, thus, enabling the students and
teaching staff to fulfill their academic requirements.
2) The difference between public and university libraries lies in the fact that public
libraries serve the needs of the citizens generally while the university libraries are
aimed to serve the needs of the students and their teachers. In order to do so,
academic libraries follow the demands of university programs. For example, with
the expansion of the curricula and programs, library collections are expected to
expand proportionately. This is the reason why the libraries of large universities
are better equipped than the libraries of some small schools or colleges.
3) Academic libraries are there to back up the academic life which means that the
bigger the university, the better the library.
4) The mission of academic libraries is to support the academic programs with the
adequate library collections, thus, enabling the students and staff to meet their
curricula and research needs.
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Task 6) In your own words summarize the second paragraph of the text 'Academic
Libraries'.
Task 7) Homework assignment. Based on the guidelines covered in this unit summarize
the following text (392 words) in no more than 50 words.
2010 top trends in academic libraries
The ACRL (The Association of College and Research Libraries) Research, Planning and
Review Committee, a component of the Research Coordinating Committee, is
responsible for creating and updating a continuous and dynamic environmental scan for
the association that encompasses trends in academic librarianship, higher education, and
the broader environment. As a part of this effort, the committee develops a list of the top
ten trends that are affecting academic libraries now and are likely to do so in the near
future. The compiled list was based on an extensive review of most recent literature as
well as on an online survey that was sent to 9,812 ACRL members in February 2010.
Although the response rate was small, it helped to clarify the trends. Here is one of the
ten most important trends listed.
Changes in higher education will require that librarians possess diverse skills. As
technological changes continue to influence not only the way libraries are used but also
the nature of collections, librarians need to broaden their portfolio of skills to provide
services to library users. Academic librarians will need ongoing formal training to
continue in the profession. We may see an increasing number of non-MLS 1 professionals
in academic libraries with the skills needed to work in this changing environment.
Graduate LIS2 programs and professional organizations will be challenged to provide
new and relevant professional development while individual librarians and their
institutions will have difficulties to fund such development. The profession may need to
consider whether the terminal degree required for librarians should be altered or
expanded.
A recent OCLC3 report calls for academic libraries to reevaluate all library job
descriptions and qualifications to ensure that training and hiring include the skills,
education, and experience required to support new modes of research and development.
The imminent retirement of many library directors will also create changes. Are associate
deans/directors ready for new roles? What about the middle managers who might step
into higher-level administrative roles? Leadership training and mentoring, both formal
and informal, are critical to a smooth transition. Survey respondents worry that positions
will be eliminated as individuals retire and that widespread retirements will result in a
leadership gap and loss of institutional memory. They also fear that older librarians are
delaying retirement for economic reasons which is reducing opportunities for newer
librarians.
1

MLS Master of Library Science

LIS Library Information Science
3
OCLC - Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
2

adapted from http://crln.acrl.org/content/71/6/286.full

VIII Library jokes. Read the following jokes on librarians. How is the word play used
to exert the effect of humour?
Q.Why did the librarian slip and fall on the library floor?
A. Because she was in the non-friction section.
Q. What did the detective do when he didn't believe the
librarian's story?
A. He booked her!
Q. Do you know how many librarians it takes to screw in a light
bulb?
A. No, but I know where you can look it up!
Q. What king of medieval England was famous because he spent
so many nights at his Round Table writing books?
A. King Author!
Q. If you travel to Eastern Europe, why won't you find any
books in
Prague's public library?
A. They're all "Czech"ed out!
Q. Where does a librarian sleep?
A. Between the covers.
Q. When a librarian goes fishing, what goes on her hook?
A. A bookworm, of course.
(adapted from http://www.erving.com/library/jokes.htm)

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