Laws of Library Science: According to Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan, considered by librarians all over India as the father of library science, “there can be no doubt however, that there are certain essential principles underlying the management of library according to the present days’ need and conception”. Ranganathan expounded these principles in a systematic form and reduced them to five cardinal principles. He has developed all these rules of library organization and management as the necessary implication and inevitable corollaries of his five laws.
In the context
of library science Dr. S. R. Ranganathan conceived the five laws of library
science in 1924. The statement embodying these laws were formulated i.e. the
laws took the final form in 1928 and a detailed account of these laws and their
implication were published in the form of a book in 1931 by Bombay Asia
Publishing House (This is also the year in which Melville Dewey passed away). Most
librarians worldwide accept them as the foundations of their philosophy.
The five laws of library science
are:
a)
Books are for use.
b)
Every reader his / her book (i.e. books are for all).
c)
Every book its reader (i.e. every book in a library
must find its reader)
d)
Save the time of the reader (i.e. a user is supposed to
be a busy person. So his / her time must be saved). Corollary: Save the time of
the staff.
e)
Library is a growing organism (A library always grows
in terms of document i.e. book, reader or user and staff).
Ranganathan at
first formulated the statement of four laws only, Laws 2-5 in the present
state. The first law emerged last from the casual hint provided by his
professor E. B. Ross.
1. Need of the Laws of Library and Information Science: In the
past before the formulation of library science laws there was no evidence of an
overall view of libraries. It looked as if future development were totally
unpredictable. By proposing the laws Ranganathan solved the problem. The basic
needs of the laws of library science are:
a) Give Pressure at the Subconscious Level to Work: Scientific
methods are applicable equally in both natural and social sciences. The only
difference lies in the status of the basic principles. These were hypotheses in
the natural science and normative
principles in the social sciences.
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Terms |
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Hypothesis: Proposed
explanation of some thing made on the basis of limited evidence used as a
starting point for further investigation. |
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b) Helps Library Science to Become an Independent Subject: A
subject cannot stand in its position unless some fundamental laws are not
attached to it, so by proposing the laws Ranganathan put the first stone in
this direction.
c) Denote Library Practices: Laws of library science contain in a
latest form all the library practices of the past and the present and those which
are likely to be evolved in the future.
d) Serve as a Higher Court:
These laws are applicable to any problem in the areas of library science,
library service and library practice. In case of conflict between canons, an appeal is made to the five
laws of library science to resolve the conflict.
e) Boundary Condition: Laws of library science locate the boundary
condition within which the librarian might work.
2. Usefulness of the
Five Laws
a) Act as Fundamental Laws: The five laws of library science are
fundamental laws of library and information science and are applicable to any
problem in the areas of library science, library service and library practice.
Five laws are guiding norms; these are the verified principles applicable
everywhere in the library world.
b) Help in Deriving Canon, Principles and Postulates: With the help
of these five laws of Library Science we can derive canons, principles and postulates
applicable in different fields of library and information science. These
fundamental laws will serve as a source of inspiration and guidance in the years
to come.
c) Resolve Conflict Between Cannons: The laws of library science
help in solving any conflict that may arise during the functioning of
libraries. The five laws serve as a higher court. So in case of conflict
between canons of cataloguing, classification etc. an appeal is made to the
five laws of library science to resolve the conflict.
d) Guiding Rules: The laws of library science guide the staff in
decision making about what is right and what is wrong in a given situation. As
such Ranganathan’s five laws of library science have found universal acceptance
as Pentagon of Library Philosophy.
3. Variants of the Five Laws of LIS: According to Ranganathan’s
own words “One is the generalization of the concept ‘Book’ this has been
emphasized in recent years in the term document”, so Ranganathan later on in
his “Documentation and its Facets” reformulated the laws as
a) Documents are for use.
b) Every reader his / her
document.
c) Every document its reader.
d) Save the time of the reader.
e) Library is a growing organism.
In 1998,
librarian Michael Gorman (past president of the American Library Association,
2005-2006), recommended the following laws in addition to Ranganathan's five in
his small book, "Our Singular Strengths":
a) Libraries serve humanity.
b) Respect all forms by which
knowledge is communicated.
c) Use technology intelligently to enhance service. d) Protect free access to knowledge.
e) Honor the past and create the future.
In 2004,
librarian Alireza Noruzi recommended applying Ranganathan's laws to the web in
his paper, "Application of Ranganathan's Laws to the Web"
a) Web resources are for use.
b) Every user his or her web
resource.
c) Every web resource its user.
d) Save the time of the user.
e) The Web is a growing organism.
In Ranganathan’s
own words the implications of the first laws of library science are
a) Location of the Library: Location of the library should be the
one which is conveniently accessible
to the community to be served. A public library should be at a place which most
citizens can frequently visit regularly on some business or other; at the same
time the location should be as free from noise and other disturbances as
possible so that serious study can be made. A University library should be
centrally located. A special library should be near the factory entrance or
factory canteen. In case of school and college libraries the location does not
matter very much because distances are small from various sections. However it
would be preferable to have it centrally located.
b) Library
Building and Furniture:
The library building should be well
planned. The exterior should be inviting and the interior should be
attractive. The building should be functional and at the same time aesthetic.
It should be functional one providing enough space for various purposes to meet
the requirements. The furniture should be so provided as to give comfort to the
readers and to make use of the resources of the library as conveniently as
possible. Racks in which books are kept should not be high and books on the top
shelves should be easily reachable.
c) Library Hours: The opening hours of the library should be
decided keeping in view the need of the user. The influence of the first law on
library hours has resulted in opening for long hours and on all days of the
year without any holidays. Library hours should also be convenient to the users.
If possible, each user of the library should be provided with a key of the
library so that the user can use the library at any hour, whenever he feels
like using it.
d) Library Staff: In order to maximize the use of the library, it
is essential that library staff should be qualified and efficient. Every member
of the staff should perform the role of a friend,
philosopher and guide to all
those who come to the library to use it. The staff should believe in and follow
the philosophy of service to the user. They should be approachable, courteous, helpful and willing to appreciate the point of views of others; a missionary
zeal to serve the user; amiable manners and professional competence are the essential
qualities of the library staff for carrying out the mandate of the first law.
e) Book Selection: The books should be selected and acquired
keeping in view the present and potential
requirement of the user. There should also be a periodical weeding out of
books.
f) Shelf Arrangement: The books should be classified, catalogued
and arranged according to a helpful sequence.
g) Reference Service: The personal service will lead to greater use
of library document.
The forces of the first law can be looked at
from the following-
In the ancient
period books were rare i.e. multiple copies were not available due to the non
availability of printing machines. The copying of the Mahabharata was a very tough
requiring long hours to copy a document. So, in the past, there was a great
deal of negligence towards the first law. In modern times due to the availability
of printing technology, photocopying, scanning etc it is possible to overcome
all such barriers. But unfortunately due to the result of a rudimentary
practice of preserving the documents, that tendency has remained as a regular
habit in the successive generation of librarians. The modern librarian should
overcome such a habit and there is an urgent need for the vigorous attempt to
eliminate the negligence to the first law.
A modern
librarian who has faith in the first law is happy only when his/her reader make
his/her shelves constantly empty. Also in such cases he/she will go to them,
not to snatch away the book they are using but to distribute the new arrival
that needs to be introduced to them as quickly as possible.
The forces of the
first law as a whole can be traced out as
- Make the library open access rather than traditional closed access;
- Make free access to the book world;
- Branch libraries should open in
the larger cities in order to be easily
reachable within a few minutes walk from each house;
- Books should be sent free to the houses of those that would
offer to get them introduced in their neighborhood;
- Books should be carried in
motor van from street to street for their distribution amongst the residents.
The above forces
of the first law will be possible only if library has enough funds and the
library itself obtains free copy of books from different sources. But in this industrialized
world in which everybody pays according to his/her need or requirement, there
is a doubt that an exception will happen for library and information science
only. So the fulfillment of the first law is bleak in near future. If library
legislation comes to help in this regard or the readers of a library are ready
to pay according to their need, the law, Books
are for use, can be satisfied in every aspect.
In the fifteenth
and sixteenth century books were actually kept in chains (chained library) to
confine their movement to the sphere determined by their chain. Such chaining
was more conducive to the preservation than to the use of the books. This
practice was in contrast to the first law of library and Information Science.
5. Second Law: Every Reader his
/ her Book: The second law is, every reader his / her book (books
are for all). According to the second law every reader of a library should have
the books he / she wants. It advocates for a mandatory provision of library
services to each reader according to his / her need. It advocates the universal
and democratization of library services i.e. documents are not merely for
scholars but for all, including the poor, sick, blind, prisoner, neo-literates
and the old. The documents should be accessible irrespective of occupational
and income lines, irrespective of the normal and the abnormal, or irrespective
of an adult and a child.
Ranganathan
examines the implication of the second law under the following four categories.
a) Obligation of the State
i) Library Legislation:
In order to achieve the second law it is desirable that economy factor should
not stand as a barrier. This will be possible through library legislation,
which will provide for finance of public libraries at various levels to achieve
free library services for all.
ii) Maintenance of a Library System
(Network): As far as students, teachers and researchers are concerned
the public library plays only a marginal role in fulfilling the second law.
Therefore, the state also has the
responsibility of establishing other types of libraries like school library,
college library, university library and special library.
iii) Co ordination and Resource
Sharing: A given library would not have the finance to
purchase documents on occasional demand. Therefore the second law would suggest
the formulation of a National library network to share the resources,
especially for the purpose of inter-library loan.
b) Obligation of the Library Authority
i) Choice of Book (Book Selection):
The second law implies that all the books that can be useful should be
selected and all the useless books should be discarded. The selection should be
based on individual needs. The library authority should ensure the proper
selection and acquisition policy in order to build up a balanced collection in
the library for each category of users i.e. the blind, neo-literates, scholars,
children, young, adult, man, women, etc. Buying a document that has no
potential demand is a violation of the second law.
ii) Choice of the Staff:
The library authority should select an adequate and competent team of library
staff and it should take utmost care in the recruitment of the library
personnel, their subsequent promotion, recognition and status.
c) Obligation of the Library Staff
i) Open Access: The
library staff should also feel the obligation to introduce open access to help
the readers in gaining access to all the books of possible interest to them.
The open access makes it possible for a reader to approach books directly and
handle them personally without any barrier. A user can, thus browse amongst the
world of books and thus they will have better chances of choosing the right
book.
ii) Cataloguing:
Some times the information contained in a chapter or a few pages of a book may
be of interest to a reader but the users often tend to miss such content. To
avoid such oversight the library should introduce subject analytical or cross
reference entries.
iii) Shelf Arrangement:
The shelf should be arranged according to the subject of the document and not
based on the size and other aspects.
iv) Maintenance: In
case of open access libraries there
is every possibility of some document being misplaced intentionally or
unintentionally by the patron of the library. To fulfil the second law
misplaced books must be restored to their proper places. Books in need of
binding or repair should be taken out from the shelves from time to time.
v) Reference Service:
Reference service is an effective means of ensuring that the reader gain access
to all the documents of potential interest to him that are held by the library.
So the library staff should have proper training in reference work and be able
to provide an effective reference service to the user in getting the right
book.
d) Obligation of the Reader
i) Library Rules Should be Followed:
A user must realize that library rules are framed to get the maximum out of the
library resources and to prevent the misuse of library resources. The rules are
aimed at increasing the use of the library rather than curbing its use. Thus,
the user should regard the rigid enforcement of the rules as an aid rather than
a hindrance in the use of the library.
ii) Maintenance of the System:
A user should not misplace the books within the library or damage it. This
will deprive the other users; similarly a user should not mutilate or take out
cards from the library catalogue, tear pages or steal etc.
iii) Should not Ask for Any Undue
Special Privileges: The Library is meant for every body’s use and no
one should have undue privileges at the expense of others. The current issues,
the reference books etc which are in much demand should not go through the
process of any special privileges.
iv) Returns of Books In Time:
The books that are borrowed must be returned on or before due date so that
other users do not have to suffer. If a document is lying unused at home, it is
the obligation of the user to return it as soon as possible.
6. Third Law: Every Book its Reader:
Every book in a library must find its reader. This law emphasizes the
approach to the document. According to this law, every book in a library must
find its reader, not a single item should be lost in the darkness of the stack.
The following
measures should be adopted for giving effect to this law.
a) Introducing Open Access: In the open access system books are arranged in shelves in the classified
order and the readers have freedom to access them. In the course of readers’
browsing through the shelves they may come across books of interest to them the
existence of which they may not be aware of; so the chances of readers noticing
the books and reading them are enhanced by the open access system only.
b) Provision of Popular Department: The provision of popular
department like newspaper reading room, periodical section, etc. offer baits to
the reader and such provision increases the chances for every book to get its
reader. Recent additions, rare books, specific collection, festival collection
etc displayed at prominent places attracts the reader’s attention.
c) Book Selection: Best attention should be paid to book selection
so that the chances of books remaining unused are reduced.
d) Cataloguing: Subject cataloguing, series entries, cross
reference entries etc. may often reveal to the reader the books which might not
have otherwise been noticed.
e) Shelf Arrangement: If the shelf arrangement is made by the subject approach then there are better
chances of books finding their reader. Again, the subsequent attention should
be given by the library staff to maintain the arrangement by way of restoring
the misplaced books to their correct place and so on.
f) Reference Service: There must be the provision for personal
assistance to each reader when they feel they need it. The reference staff
should act as a canvassing agent for book.
g) Publicity and Library Extension Service: Internally, within the
premises of the library, the staff should provide shelf guide, bay guides, etc.
which will guide the reader to appropriate places in the library. Externally,
the reference staff should go to make the use of mass media like press, radio,
television, public lecture, demonstration, tours, exhibitions, library weeks,
brochure and leaflets, etc. for publicizing the library.
7. Fourth Law: Save the Time of
the Reader: A user is supposed to be a busy person; so his / her time
must be saved. Corollary of this law is “save the time of the staff”. A reader coming to the library should get an
exact and fast service; they should not be made to wait longer than necessary.
Unnecessary delay may cause vexation and readers may be dissatisfied.
Dissatisfied readers may cease to come to the library.
The implications
of the fourth law are as follows.
a) Location of the library: The library must be centrally located
so that it is conveniently accessible to the community being served.
b) Open Access: There are many advantages of introducing the open
access. One of the major advantages of open
access system is the subjective time decline which gives satisfaction to
the readers.
c) Classification and Cataloguing: Proper Classification system
which would bring together documents on a specific subject and also the related
subject should be adopted.
d) Shelf Arrangement: The arrangement of documents according to the
degree of mutual relationship of subjects would lead to saving the time of the
readers.
e) Signage System: Stack room guide, bay guides, tier guides, gangway
guides should be provided to save the time of the reader.
f) Reference Service: The fourth law advocates the need of
reference service.
g) Charging System: The issue method, charging and discharging
should be done as quickly as possible.
h) Centralized Cataloguing: Cataloguing in press, cataloguing in
publication, cataloguing with the aid of OCLC database greatly reduce the time
factor.
i) Information Technology: The use of IT in libraries invariably
speed up many activities. So to fulfill the fourth law the IT should be
introduced.
8. Fifth Law: Library is a Growing
Organism: The main components of the library are documents, the user
and the staff. A library always grows in terms of documents, the reader or the user
and the staff. The growth of a new library can be compared to the growth of a
child as it grows in every aspect. In case of a service library that has attained
certain degree of stability its growth can be compared with the growth of the
adult i.e. it grows in terms of replacing old document by new one and new user
will continuously replace the old one.
The implication
of the fifth law of library and information science are:
a) Library
Building: The library
building should be modular and should have the provision of future growth.
b) Choice of Classification and Cataloguing Code: The
classification and cataloguing scheme chosen should have the provision to keep
apace with the development in the universe of subject.
c) Physical Forms of Catalogue: The physical forms of catalogue
chosen should have the provision of updating, sorting in different order,
editing and so on.
d) Weeding out of Document: To make the space for new addition the
documents that are obsolete and unused should be weeded out. The weeded out
document should be stored, where they are available for occasional use or at a
central place (a central library) with cooperation among libraries.
e) Modernization, Computerization: Library that grows fast both in
terms of size and services may have to go for the
computerization of various house-keeping
operations (i.e. acquisition, circulation, cataloguing etc). In order to
take care of the growing collection the documents should be digitized or
microfilmed; the new procurement should be made in the form of electronic
journals, e-book, etc. To cope with the increased readership the library should
go for the video terminal and ultimately to the digital or virtual library.
Previously the libraries grew with the
collection, but nowadays the digital library, or virtual library or e-library
does not show the characteristics of the growing of a library by volume. The
growth is in the use of sophisticated technologies.
9. Let Us Sum Up: Ranganathan’s
five laws of library science consist of five short statements but they provide
guidance and rationale for practice and teaching of library and information
science. With the help of these laws, we can derive postulates, cannons and
principles applicable in different fields of library and information
science. The first three laws emphasize
the exploitation of the documents of the library fully by the maximum number of
users. The fourth law gives emphasis on the role of reference librarian and has
a great potentiality to bring reforms in the running of libraries. All laws as
a whole will serve as source of inspiration and guidance in the years to come.
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