a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals, and sometimes films and recorded music for people to read, borrow, or refer to 图书馆 a school library. 学校图书馆。 [as modifier]a library book. 图书馆藏书。 ■a collection of books and periodicals held in such a building or room 图书馆的藏书(量) the Institute houses an outstanding library of 35,000 volumes on the fine arts. 该学院有关美艺术方面的藏书达35,000卷之巨。 ■a collection of films, recorded music, genetic material, etc., organized systematically and kept for research or borrowing (电影、录制音乐、基因材料等的)资料库,资料室 a record library. 录音资料室。 ■a series of books, recordings, etc., issued by the same company and similar in appearance 系列丛书;系列音像资料 ■a room in a private house where books are kept 书房,书斋 ■(亦作software library)(Computing)a collection of programs and software packages made generally available, often loaded and stored on disk for immediate use (计算机)软件库
语源
late Middle English: via Old French from Latin libraria 'bookshop', feminine (used as a noun) of librarius 'relating to books', from liber, libr- 'book'