Research libraries are in every country in the world.
Research libraries have books, periodicals and other materials that students, researchers and other professionals can use to find information about a wide range of topics. By being able to find information about what is already known, time is saved having to rediscover that information. For example, to find out the value of machine tools exported from Sweden to another country its much easier to look in a book on statistics for that data. Doing this is much easier to do than to contact every Swedish company to find out the value of any tools they may have exported. As another example of how a library is used, a student in their first year of studies may use books to research and prepare a short report on the general area of their major study.