Facilities in Maltese libraries for the research worker in the humanities : the research worker's point of view

Abstract

Apart from the Central Bank Library, the Medical Library and, to a lesser degree, the Theology Library at Tal-Virtu, there are not in Malta, to my knowledge, any specialized libraries. This is an important premise to make because all research is, to a greater or lesser degree, specialized by its very nature. Therefore, both the Humanities and the Social Sciences have to make do with what is available, namely the country's two large libraries: the National Library and the University Library. (For practical reasons I am considering the Valletta, BeltisSebħ and Gozo libraries as one institution. Moreover I am not going into the merits of lending facilities which are provided by the Beltissebħ section of the Public Library system and by the whole University Library complex, except, of course, its reference section.)