The difference between "they" and "it"

Question

I read the text below, and I found a strange "they".

"they" indicates "that library" in the text, right?

So, I think we should change the "they" into "it" because "that library" is singular, not plural.

I want to know if the "they" is correct or not.

If we can write both they and it in the sentence, what's the difference between they and it?

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[Text]

Libraries are becoming increasingly interested in the services they are providing for their users. This is an important focus?especially as more and more information becomes available electronically. However, the traditional strengths of libraries have always been their collections. This is true still today?especially in research libraries. Also, collection makeup is the hardest thing to change quickly. For example, if a library has a long tradition of heavily collecting materials published in Mexico, then even if that library stops purchasing all Mexican imprints, its Mexican collection will still be large and impressive for several years to come unless they start withdrawing books.

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

I interpret "they" as the librarians or collection managers, not the library itself. The sentence is not well written, though. I would have used a passive construction.

Anonymous · Answer

minsooy
I read the text below, and I found a strange "they".
"they" indicates "that library" in the text, right?
So, I think we should change the "they" into "it" because "that library" is singular, not plural.
I want to know if the "they" is correct or not.
If we can write both they and it in the sentence, what's the difference between they and it?
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[Text]
Libraries are becoming increasingly interested in the services they are providing for their users. This is an important focus?especially as more and more information becomes available electronically. However, the traditional strengths of libraries have always been their collections. This is true still today?especially in research libraries. Also, collection makeup is the hardest thing to change quickly. For example, if a library has a long tradition of heavily collecting materials published in Mexico, then even if that library stops purchasing all Mexican imprints, its Mexican collection will still be large and impressive for several years to come unless they start withdrawing books.

You are quite right. The pronoun refers to the singular noun "library", and hence it should be singular "it".

The difference between "they" and "it"

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