Research library

The Library of Congress is one of the largest research libraries in the world

A research library is a library which contains an in-depth collection of material on one or several subjects. A research library will generally include primary sources as well as secondary sources. Large university libraries are considered research libraries, and often contain many specialized branch research libraries. Research libraries are established to meet research needs and as such are stocked with authentic materials with quality content. In most cases research libraries are attached to research institutions or organizations.

Services

Research libraries can be either reference libraries, which do not lend their holdings, or lending libraries, which do lend all or some of their holdings. Some extremely large or traditional research libraries are entirely reference in this sense, lending none of their material; most academic research libraries, at least in the U.S., now lend books, but not periodicals or other material.

A research library is often connected to the services of the university related to scholarly communication, such as support for open access journals run by the institution and the operation of an institutional repository, as well as support for the usage of other institutions' repositories and open archives through discovery tools and academic search engines like BASE, CORE and Unpaywall.

Gallery

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  The Sistine Hall of the Vatican Library, Vatican City
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  Widener Library at Harvard University is one of the largest research libraries in the world
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  Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC
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  The National Library of Malta in Valletta
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  The National Diet Library of Japan
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  Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge University

See also

• Academic library
• Trends in library usage
• Research Libraries Group
• JSTOR

Further reading

• Saunders, Wilfred Leonard (1968). University and Research Library Studies: Some Contributions from the University of Sheffield Postgraduate School of Librarianship and Information Science. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press. ISBN 9780080127262. OCLC 441960.
• Young, Heartsill (1983). ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science. Chicago, IL: American Library Association. ISBN 978-0838903711. OCLC 8907224.

External links

• Association of Research Libraries