In computer science, a library is a collection of subroutines or classes used to develop software. Libraries contain code and data that provide services to independent programs. This allows the sharing and changing of code and data in a modular fashion. Some executables are both standalone programs and libraries, but most libraries are not executables. Executables and libraries make references known as links to each other through the process known as linking, which is typically done by a linker. As of 2009[update], most modern software systems provide libraries that implement the majority of system services. Such libraries have commoditized the services which a modern application requires. As such, most code used by modern applications is provided in these system libraries. The earliest programming concepts analogous to libraries were intended to separate data definitions from the program implementation. JOVIAL brought the "COMPOOL" (Communication Pool) concept to popular attention in 1959, although it borrowed the idea from the large-system SAGE software. Following the computer science principles of Separation of Concerns and Information Hiding, "Comm Pool's purpose was to permit the sharing of System Data among many programs by providing a centralized data description." (Wexelblat 1981:369)

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