MAINTENANCE WORK AND MANAGEMENT:

Of all the functions in a library, the maintenance  work is the least discussed in professional literature. However, the importance of maintenance work cannot be over emphasised.  In fact, the ultimate success of various other functions like acquisition, classification and cataloguing rests on the efficiency of maintenance work. No matter how well a collection is classified or catalogued, books cannot be serviceable to users unless proper care is taken to organise and maintain the book collection. It is one of those less glamorous, nonetheless, very important tasks in a library. Now  let us discuss what constitutes maintenance work. Maintenance work involves continuous monitoring of the proper stocking, arrangement and display of books on the shelves in the stack rooms and taking care of them. This essentially implies two aspects: 

i) Organisation of the stack room and arrangements of books on the shelves 

ii) Conservation of books i.e. overseeing and supervising the physical conditions of books, overall cleanliness of the stack areas, etc.