In the past we’ve sometimes used {le'} “be special, exceptional” in the for private and {le'be'} “be unexceptional, nonspecific general” for public.  When he was working on voice recognition software for KCD at Dragon Systems, Mark Mandel posted:

(Mark Mandel, [199?]):  Since my office is in a different building from the company reception desk I prefer to give people the number of the fax machine closest to my desk. I put both numbers on the letterhead, labeling them in English “Klingon fax” and “general fax”. Dr. Okrand suggested {le'be'} for “general”, and so of course that's what I used.

  nav HablI' le'be'

  general FAX (vs. a private machine)

See Okrand’s note on this in HolQeD 5.2.  It’s not perfect, but Klingons may not have a concept of – or a word for - privacy; many Earth cultures don’t. 

Alternatively, you could just add {qum} “government”, {veng} “city”, {Sep} “region, country”, {wo'} “empire”, etc., at the beginning.

--Voragh

On Behalf Of mayqel qunenoS

{paq nojwI' tum} is public library. but how could we specify/describe a private library ?

qunnoH jan puqloD
ghoghwIj HablI'vo' vIngeHta'

On 29 Dec 2016 9:17 pm, "Steven Boozer" <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote:

Okrand made a point of distinguishing the actual building a few times at qepHom 2016:

landmark                                 Daq noy (not a building)
landmark                                 qach noy (building)

monument, memorial              van Hew (sculpture)
monument, memorial              van qach (building)

postal service                          QIn tum
post office (building)                QIn tum qach

planetarium                             logh chal je 'angweD  
planetarium (building)             logh chal je 'angweD qach

… and from elsewhere we know of:

tower                                       chalqach                                 
house                                      juH qach                                 
hospital                                    ropyaH qach                           

theater (i.e. building)               much qach                             

--Voragh

P.S. {'angweD}  “museum” (n)

On Behalf Of Terrence Donnelly

Speaking as a librarian, I was thrilled to see that these terms exist; I missed them initially, somehow.

To me, the {paq nojwI' qach} is the literal building housing the books and the staff, while the {tum} refers to the entity more abstractly. If you said, "I'll check the Library and see if they have that" and you used your phone app or the on-line catalog, it would be the {tum} you are accessing, but not the {qach}. If you are talking about visiting the library, I don't see much difference. I also don't see how {tum} implies "public", but that's how it's glossed, so be it.

 BTW, I would qualify {De' QulwI'} as not just "librarian", but specifically "research librarian". In fact, as the term stands, it could refer to anyone in the data analysis or research field. {paq nojwI'} is much more appropriate for what I do all day.

 ter'eS

---

From: "Michael Roney, Jr." <nahqun@gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 9:30 AM, Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote:
> Also from qepHom 2016:
>
>   paq nojwI' qach         library (building) (n)
>   paq nojwI' tum                     library (public) (n)

Do we know what the difference between libraries is?