HOW IS A LIBRARY ORGANIZED? - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2026

A library is an enclosed space that contains a significant amount of resources for learning and knowledge, made available to all those who want or need to learn or learn about a particular topic or subject.

These resources can be written, visual, auditory or audiovisual. The larger a library, the greater the need to organize it properly so that the required information can be found relatively easily and quickly.

Whether it is a school, university, specialized, public or private library, all of them must have a strict organizational protocol that allows not only the easy location of the material, but its correct preservation and forms of use.

Although there are pre-established and universally accepted regulations for the organization of the different materials within a library, each site can apply its own regulations that are adapted to its particularities.

All these procedures are in charge of people qualified for this purpose, called librarians or librarians.

The role of the library has changed over the years. At first it was the privilege of the ecclesiastical castes and scholars. Later the phenomenon of the democratization of information occurred, with which the library could be accessed and used by any member of a community.

In our times, technology has allowed more and more information to be accessed with just a touch on our personal computers.

Today, the physical and location characteristics of traditional libraries have lost relevance, and their main function is now the digitization of the information contained in them, for its preservation and consultation by millions of people around the world.

Aspects of organizing a library

Although each library may have specific and particular functions, there are characteristics that they share in terms of the way they are organized.

Here are the main things to consider when organizing a library.

The collection

It is the set of materials that the library has and all those external or its own resources -and in various supports- that allow satisfying the community's need for information.

This means that a library's collection is complemented with those resources that other libraries or organizations with which there is a mutual collaboration can contribute, to guarantee the greatest possible diversity.

The collection must be balanced in terms of reference works, literary works and other subjects.

The selection

In order to select the best resources for the library, several criteria must be taken into account, among which we can list:

1- Content and supports that respond to the objectives and needs of the library and its users.

2- Current and quality content.

3- Renowned and reputable authors.

4- Style, language and level writing.

5- Physical state and durability of the support.

6- Manageability of the support.

Other conditioning factors for the selection of the material will be the budget, the space available and if there are specific collections that you want to form.

The acquisition

After making the previous selection, which will be much more extensive, we proceed to the acquisition of the material; This can be done through direct purchase, legal deposit, exchange or donations.

Discard or purge

From time to time, the head of the library must "purify" the collection of material that is outdated, of little use or that is deteriorated, in order to make room for new material.

This purge must be documented, specifying the reasons for its disposal and the final destination of the material, which may be a deposit, donation to another institution, sale or recycling.

The entry of materials

Any resource that enters the library for the first time must follow a certain process that involves registration, sealing, classification and cataloging, before being finally placed on the corresponding shelf.

Register

Either manual or digital, it includes the assignment of a correlative entry number and the data of the author, title, publisher, place and date of publication, price, origin and observations.

The sealing of the book

All the material in a library must be classified and cataloged to ensure its identification and allow the quick physical location of the documents.

This procedure is done through the application of internationally accepted bibliographic identification standards, which are the following:

- CBU: it is the Universal Bibliographic Control and consists of the bibliographic entry that is made for the first time and in the country of origin of the document by a national bibliographic center, in accordance with international standards that allow the exchange of records between the different countries.

- ISBD: is the acronym for International Standard Bibliographical Description and is the main standard in the exercise of cataloging. Divide the bibliographic description into eight areas, namely:

1- Title and mention of responsibility.

2- Edition.

3- Specific designation of the material class.

4- Publication and / or distribution.

5- Physical description.

6- Series.

7- Notes.

8- Standard number and acquisition conditions.

The ISBD also includes punctuation marks (.-, =, /,:,; and others) that help explain and supplement the information.

- ISBN: is the International Standard Book Number and is a unique and universal identifier for all books for commercial use. Each book has a unique and unrepeatable number; It is like the identity card of the document and is issued in the country of origin of the document.

- ISSN: is the acronym for International Standard Serial Number and is an internationally recognized numerical code to identify serial publications, printed or not. It differs from ISBN in that it is used only for serial publications such as magazines or newspapers. Other systems are the ISMN for music, the ISAN for audiovisual material and the IBSN for Internet Blogs.

How to find a book in the library?

Most of the libraries in the world have a FILE or CATALOG, which is nothing other than a piece of furniture (it can also exist digitally) where the data of all the documents in the place are, in addition to the exact place (hall, shelf, etc.) where it can be located within the enclosure.

In the cards, as well as in labels placed on the spine of each book, you will find a series of numbers that obey the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), whose more general characteristics we comment on below.

The first three numbers have to do with 10 major areas or subjects, namely:

000 = General works

100 = Philosophy and psychology

200 = Religion, theology

300 = Social Science, Political Science

400 = Language and Linguistics

500 = Pure Sciences (Mathematics, Natural Sciences, etc.)

600 = Applied Science, Technology, Medicine

800 = Literature

900 = Geography, history

In addition to this main numbering, there are other auxiliary numbers that indicate additional aspects such as language, place, race, time, form of presentation of documents, and so on.

Symbols such as colon, slash and others are also used to relate or subgroup topics.

On the book label you will also find, in addition to the CDU classification number, the first three letters of the author's last name and the year of publication, as well as other information for internal library use.

References

1. Complutense Library (1996). Auxiliary Library Technicians. Editorial Complutense. Madrid Spain. Pages 79-83.
2. Guide for the organization of the school library. Technical aspects. Recovered from buenosaires.gob.ar
3. The organization of a library. Recovered from laculturaescrita.blogspot.com.ar
4. Diputación de Teruel (2006) Organization and management of small libraries. Recovered from dpteruel.es
5. César Martín Gavilán (2009). The standardization of the bibliographic identification ISBD, ISBN, ISSN. Recovered from eprints.rclis.org
6. Miguel Benito (1999). The universal decimal classification system. Recovered from taranco.eu
7. Cadiz University. The CDU, the library's classification system. Recovered from library.uca.es
8. Universal Decimal Classification. Recovered from es.wikipedia.org.