The Five Laws of Library Science was built from Ranganathan’s (hereafter, R.) 1924 study of the English Library system, and a series of lectures and papers after his return, lending a composite feel to the work. The writing style is surprisingly general-audience, involving frequent humor, slang, and nonstandard narrative techniques. English-educated upper-class Indians appear to be the target audience; Many of the policy topics relate to the Madras specifically.
The five laws are framed sequentially. Half the book is concerned with the Second Law, being where R. saw the Indian library system’s primary challenges.
R.’s Five Laws have been widely absorbed into the ethos and praxis of modern library systems. However, summaries of The Five Laws often gloss over the book’s significant political and legislative content. (E.g., the book includes a lengthy draft bill for the establishment of a library system in the Madras.) In advocating for a public library system in Madras and encouraging (chiding, really) upper-class Indians to fund libraries, R. repeatedly forwards a collectivist perspective, including the benefit of wealth redistribution. He sometimes invokes utilitarian arguments about the national economic benefits of free access to information, and sometimes relies on Hindu texts.
The books’ utility for addressing the challenges facing digital libraries is limited, but the Laws’ sequential nature helps identify the imbalance: The Fourth Law is overemphasized, while the third is neglected. The other area where The Five Laws is particularly ill-suited for the present day is its exclusive focus on growth, when many library system’s budgets and staff are shrinking.
This report closes with a somewhat-unrelated appendix of hypotheses concerning the growth of uncitedness. (I’ve had these rolling around for a while, but hadn’t taken the time to set them down anywhere.)
The two previous research reports (India and England) cover this at length; I’ll briefly summarize.
The British and Indian public library systems Ranganathan was engaged with emerged in the 19th c. as part of the “Adult Education” movement, which was rooted in upper-class individualist/utilitarian legislative responses to working- and lower-class agitation for expanded suffrage. By the mid-19th c., private libraries were well-established and fairly accessible; The public library system was created and bolstered by 1850, 1855, and 1866 Acts; Significant private donations (mainly from Carnegie) in the 1890s; and the 1919 Act.
Because of its economic value to the British Empire, administrative and technological developments were often deployed concurrently in India, including public education. Public libraries, however, were slower to take root. Ranganathan was born in 1892, to a Hindu Brahmin family in the Madras Presidency; His education was both secular and religious, and at the collegiate levels in the English system. After several years as a mathematics professor at Madras University, he was appointed University Librarian in 1924. He traveled to England the following year for an intensive study of its library systems; This, coupled with various lectures and essays following his return, forms the basis of The Five Laws of Library Science, published in 1930.
After wading through the morass of modern-day academic writing on Victorian England, I was steeling myself for a brutal, antiquated slog – But no! R.’s writing style is casual, disarming, occasionally humorous, and peppered with slang; In short, The Five Laws is a general-audience work. Refreshingly free from the straitjacket of APA or Chicago, R. EMPHASIZES BIG IDEAS WITH CAPS and liberally scatters exclamation points. The work as a whole has a calico feel from its composite origin; A few sections are rendered dramaturgically, as conversations between anthropomorphized concepts (like the siblings “The Rule of Least Cost” and “…Least Space,” nicknamed “Costie” and “Spacie”); One chapter includes a lengthy draft bill for the establishment of a public library system in the Madras. The current edition (by Ess Ess Publications for Randra Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science) is a scanned facsimile rather than a digital re-setting, meaning the original’s occasionally-flawed typography is delightfully preserved.
Owing to its international scope (the third chapter in particular), the work would likely prove useful to anyone looking to establish a public library system; But the text often references the particulars in the Madras, and the assumed reader is Indian, English-educated, and possibly in some position of influence over policy at governmental or educational institutions.
R.’s Five Laws are observed rather than declared: They derive from his study of flourishing library systems and personal experimentation. But R. also brings his Hindu grounding to the process, often closing chapters by emphasizing the social goals of the public library movement by quoting Hindu texts. The Laws are framed sequentially:
The disproportionate amount of ink R. expends on the Second Law reflects the stage at which he saw the Indian library context and its immediate challenges. (Sequentially, by percent: 17.5%, 53.8%, 8.9%, 10.6%, and 8.2%.)
R. begins with a history of library design and function; From medieval “chained” libraries aiming to preserve rare, hand-made manuscripts; To the current “open stacks” style designed to enthusiastically circulate affordable, mass-produced print. But beyond these physical aspects, he identifies policy decisions as roadblocks to “use,” sometimes in subtle ways:
As is still often the case, R. identifies libraries’ meager budgets as the root of many use-related problems, and fiercely advocates for librarian wage increases in particular, in order to draw highly-educated, serious individuals into the field.
This is a case where reading the full text rather than just the heading is clarifying: R. discusses individual staff-patron interactions mostly in the first and fourth law, R.’s arguments here are specifically collectivist in nature.
He metaphorically invokes “revolution” several times int the text – Interesting choice for an author and audience under colonial rule! – and begins his discussion of demographics with the heading “The Classes and the Masses,” where he notes “The Second Law of library science has triumphantly planted its democratic flag in many a land having blown to pieces the black-coated barrier of exclusiveness and snobbery.” (p. 89) He sees India’s delays in implementing a more robust and accessible library system as partially the fault of his upper-class peers, who he calls out in this particularly spicy passage:
This tragic triumph of India in her fight against the intrusion of the Second Law… is not a little due to the almost criminal apathy and neglect of duty on the part of her better placed “English-Educated” sons. They have developed an abnormal short-sight which disables them from seeing beyond their nose, at any rate beyond their privileged circle. They glibly speak of India, and her millions, when they mean only the two percent of her millions who can lisp in English. (p. 90)
Generally, R. approaches the intention and function of public libraries in the British “Adult Education” mold. He describes the widespread benefit of libraries for the country and city folk; The erudite and illiterate; Seafarers and landlubbers; Men and Women. (R.’s full-throated advocacy for gender equality leads me to comfortably modify this law’s gender-inclusive title for a modern audience.) Discussing the increasing educational lag in rural areas, he observes,
[E]ven at the very early stage, the increasing complexities and the grave menaces attendant on the civic problems of a crowded city made out a strong plea for “education for all” and “books for all” in the case of the city folk. That inexorable mistress, necessity, however, did not, for long, put a similar pressure in regard to the country folk. Where the consequences of ignorance and lack of books are immediate in an urban area, they are latent and become visible only very late in rural areas. (p. 111)
Hence, to provide books for every reader, collective action is required (in the form of legislation and funding) to ensure that even readers in rural areas can be served in an appropriate manner, with traveling service. He repeatedly makes utilitarian arguments that the ROI on library funding is good: The quick dissemination of new ideas in agriculture, industrialization, etc. translates directly into increased economic productivity.
The chapter “The Second Law and its Digivaja [Universal Conquest]” details the progress and pitfalls of library movements across the globe. This section is historically interesting but somewhat unrelated to my main line of inquiry. One notable takeaway for me is the massive role Carnegie played in kick-starting library systems in the US and UK; R. bemoans that his largess was limited mainly to the Atlantic seaboard, and chides wealthy Indians for not picking up the slack, domestically.
The chapter “The Second Law and its Implications” contains draft legislation for the Madras public library system, and is largely focused on the differing obligations of four hierarchical entities:
Once the library has acquired books, what can librarians do to ensure each book has the greatest chance of being used? Discussions include physical layout and wayfinding:
And “extension work” and promotion to draw potential patrons:
This report’s “Discussion” section goes into more detail on this and the following law.
R. devotes significant ink in this and the previous chapter to the value of comprehensive cataloging. He extols the value of cross-referencing as a means of exposing the contents of opaque or multi-topic books (e.g., essay collections) in useful ways for readers who would otherwise miss the information therein.
Interestingly, R. intertwines the “time of the reader” with “the time of the staff;” That is, adopting more efficient back-of-house practices can lead to a smoother front-of-house experience, and potentially free the staff up for more direct patron contact and personal assistance. (The specifics here mostly concern switching from ledger systems to card systems.)
This section begins with statistical reports of the massive growth of library systems, in books, readers, and staff. R. advocates for careful forethought in planning in all aspects of a library system; Not just square footage, but the adoption and modification of cataloging systems; Planning for different staff departments as headcount increases; Working to understand where patrons are losing time in the library process and stemming the loss’ multiplication as usership increases.
Ranganathan opens The Five Laws by comparing the First Law’s seeming self-evidence to the first Upanishadic Law of Conduct, “Satayam Vada – Speak the truth” – A fitting comparison for a 2024 revisit, as the book’s ideas have in the intervening near-century become fully absorbed into the ethos and praxis of library work. But such revisits of canonized material often reveal fascinating and forgotten tangents; and in this case specifically, shed light on the limitations of the Laws’ utility in digital library settings.
The Five Laws is not politically neutral. R. spends half the book on the Second Law, agitating for a collectivist social ethos (Scolding upper-class Indians for not funding private libraries like their UK counterparts; Convincing urban citizens their taxes are well-spent on expensive rural library service), and advocating for wealth redistribution for the public benefit (including via draft legislation). The modern pedagogical framing of the Second Law from an individualist perspective is a misreading; The meaning of this Law is closer to “Every citizen deserves equal access to library services, which should be provided for collectively.”
R.’s visit to England, from where many of his examples are drawn, coincides with decades of enthusiasm and support for the UK library system. Each of the four Library Acts between 1850 and 1919 further liberalized the conditions for creating a public library, and signaled increasing political support for libraries in their for/against vote counts. Carnegie’s generous efforts in the 1890s created a flywheel effect, as communities experienced firsthand the benefits of library service, and subsequently passed library bills. The most recent 1919 passed with overwhelming support; it un-capped the amount of taxes localities could levy for library, and enabled library expansion into rural and suburban areas.
The statistics R. provides from the US, UK, and India show multi-hundred-fold circulation increases over the 1910-1920 decade; His own Madras University Library experienced a 2,260% circulation increase between 1914 and 1930. (p. 403) Against this backdrop, R. declares “The Library is a Growing Organism,” not only in size, but in speciation, e.g., into law libraries, medical libraries, etc. The whole book is, in fact, concerned solely with growth: Stimulating it; Bolstering it; Accommodating its inevitability with square footage, staffing, and organizational methods. “It is an accepted biological fact,” R. tells us, “that a growing organism alone will survive. An organism which ceases to grow will petrify and perish.” (p. 382)
You can see where this is gowing. Here in 2024, it appears Ranganathan has fallen victim to the Fukuyama problem: An inability to imagine a future that diverts from recent historical trends. (End of history and the last man, the; Criticisms, 2024)
So, are we in the “petrify” or the “perish” stage?
The American Library Association (n.d.) hosts a handy “what to do when your budget gets cut” guide on their website, and the Public Library Association (2021) reports 27% of public libraries lost staff positions in 2021. Both Directorship and Beginning Librarian salaries dropped during the 2008 recession and never recovered. (ibid) Between 2019 and 2021, SFPL’s vacancy rate increased from 8.6% to 13%. (SFPL, 2022) Former SJSU Prof. Meredith Farkas’ (2017) article Less is Not More neatly encapsulates the emotional toll of “doing more with less,” a subject which has emerged organically in nearly every class I’ve taken for my degree. From a modern critical standpoint, Ranganathan’s optimistic passion for the socially-uplifting role of libraries sounds at times like a toxic geyser of vocational awe.
Ironically, R’s suggestion of incorporating “Extension Work” (e.g., hosting performances, talks, and other promotional tangents) has taken on a fraught edge, as strands of the social safety net – woven by hard-fought political battles in the 19th and early 20th centuries – were incrementally severed in the late 20th and early 21st, leaving the Public Library in many cases as the de-facto public institution of last resort. The SFPL now employs a Social Worker and a team of Health and Safety Associates, whose “outreach contacts” with library patrons increased from 5,907 to 8,850 over calendar years 2020 and 2021. (Esguerra, 2023) In many cities, the Public Library is one of the only indoor spaces that welcome the public without expecting they purchase something.
But of course, it’s hard to visualize the breakdown of a project when you’re envisioning its creation. Let us also remember that when discussing the first law, R. bullies administrators for better librarian salaries and begs the purse-string-holders to take a long view:
An important handicap that is attendant on library service, and getting what it deserves, is that the benefits of its service are latent. A doctor gets his fifteen rupees for crossing the threshold at once, since people believe that the life or death of the patient at the next moment is dependent on his service. A lawyer gets his hundred rupees for standing on his legs for one hour since people believe that the ownership of property at the next minute is dependent on his service. But the benefit of the service of the library staff, like the benefit of the service of the teacher, is not discernible at the next moment – not even in the next year or decade. Its benefit, although more universal and lasting, will come to the surface only a generation or two later, when the people that had to open their purse and pay for it are dead and forgotten. This is a distressing attribute, with which God seems to have invested it, perhaps when in a mood of willful mischief. (p. 56)
Ranganathan’s work responds to the challenges of his day; Challenges that, in many cases, have long-since been met. The challenges of our day are so substantially different that much material in this book seems – not exactly irrelevant, because it’s stellar from a first-principles perspective – but simply silent on modern problems like the withdrawal of financial and government support; Staff attrition and burnout; Or the science-fictional environment of digital librarianship.
Which brings us to the crux of the matter. Ranganthan presupposes his laws are sequential, accruative; But the current state of digital librarianship indicates the Fourth Law (“Save the Time of the Reader”) is flourishing, while the Third (“Every Book its Reader”) is losing ground. Keeping with R.’s “organism” metaphor, imagine the digital library space as a yoked bodybuilder with a bad habit of skipping leg day.
With the maturation of computerized databases, the cataloging practices R. encourages in “Save the Time of the Reader” have reached a level of functionality, speed, and granularity almost incomprehensible in 1930 (near-instantaneous full-text search!). Document retrieval time is now negligible; The “time of the reader” is now spent selecting and refining search criteria. Wayfinding arrives in the form of UIs confettied with linked metadata; Entire library sections assembled on-the-fly just for you. But paradoxically, even with this supercharged cataloging/metadata environment, a shrinking percent of “books” are finding their “readers” – at least as evidenced by citation rates and altmetrics. Obviously, this comparison is somewhat apples-to-oranges:
To the second point: He relates an anecdote of adding a cross-reference to “coffee” for pages 615-660 of the fifth volume of the seldom-circulated Complete Works of Count Rumford, and watching it henceforth fly off the shelf. (p. 311) Never mind that hundreds of non-coffee-related pages may have gone unread; By R’s reckoning, the “book” still found “its reader.”
A different way of framing the “every book its reader” problem in digital library contexts concerns the digital system itself as an intermediary between the librarian and the patrons. The two-page subsection “reference work” in Chapter 5 contains a clear articulation of this disconnection:
The mechanical organization of a library – however desirable – can never be carried to the point of dispensing with personal service. The requirement of the Third Law defies and transcends machinery. […] The staff on Reference duty have exceptional opportunities to mingle with the passing throng of readers. This direct contact with the readers brings with it opportunities to observe their tastes and wants, their actions and reactions in their likes and dislikes. […] He knows his community and is familiar with its mind, spirit, and dominant interests. He seeks to have his finger on the pulse of his public and is ever on the wait for an opportunity to find a reader for every book. In the hands of a competent Reference Librarian, a library is like a kaleidoscope. His skills consist in turning its facets in such a way that they can all be seen and that each facet may attract those for whom it has interest. (p. 312; Significant glossing and emphasis mine.)
Reference librarians are now often placed in intervention positions in digital system; e.g. available for live chat or email. Lib Guides now provide the service R. was familiar with in the context of bibliographies; An intermediary between human and mechanical service. (In R.’s framework, my CDL role would be part of the back-of-house “cataloging” staff.) But what percentage of digital library traffic runs through these “personal” channels? And does the communication medium (chat, email) allow the reference librarian to adequately assess a reader’s mind and spirit? (No eye rolling! Consider this seriously.)
Part of the problem is scale: I’m not gonna track down these numbers, but five’ll-get-ya-ten the librarian:publication ratio is shrinking by the day. Ergo, administrative practicality necessitates offloading manual labor to mechanical techniques; The question then becomes whether these mechanical techniques are adequate for every reader. I’d argue that digital systems are presently focused almost exclusively on information-seeking, thus leaving a sizeable gap for differing patron needs.
In “Every Reader [Their] Book,” R. provides an anecdote of a rural farmer who, provided a publication related to new techniques, becomes an enthusiastic library patron. Similar anecdotes are provided for homemakers finding new information to improve the family’s at-home healthcare. In sections concerning personal service, R. advises the librarian to assess or directly query the patron for their preferred level of detail, his example being the then-current Theory of Relativity, on which material ranged from general-audience to postgraduate.
Consider the following papers, which happened to flow through CDL’s metadata system this afternoon:
The level of specialization required to understand this material – let alone translate it for a general audience – is daunting; And the pool of readers for whom this knowledge is actionable may be limited to people with access to multimillion-dollar research facilities. It is, perhaps, intuitive that readership and citation would decline in an environment like this, possibly even to a 1:1 scale.
I’m unsure how to phrase this exactly, but I wonder if the ease of writing in the post-word processor era has literally changed the function of writing from an activity primarily concerned with communicating ideas interpersonally to refining ideas individually. After the ideas have been polished and organized in writing, a paper has been produced, ergo it can be published. I cannot think of a reasonable way to test this. It would require a survey instrument, and we’d need to interview academics who published prior to word processing for a good comparison.
Another possibility is that uncitedness only appears to be increasing because it’s only now fully measurable; E.g. This lower caste of uncited material has always existed, but until the advent of digital informetric systems, there was little reason to track it.
Let’s say a scientist has a bucket full of cheese cubes, and he makes a mouse solve a maze to receive one. And let’s say the mouse figures out how to escape the maze altogether and access the full bucket. While this wasn’t the intended outcome, it’s actually a little difficult to characterize what exactly went wrong here, or who’s to blame. In one sense, it’s the scientist’s fault for making a mouse sole a puzzle before he got a single measly cheese cube, when the scientists could have done the polite thing and shared the full bucket with the mouse right off the bat. Or perhaps nothing has actually gone wrong here; That is, the mouse correctly assessed the situation, and found the correct solution for getting the cheese as efficiently as possible.
What I’m saying here is that, in building digital systems which encourage metric tracking, we’ve created an environment where it’s possible to view metrics as being primarily for their performance-based contexts, rather than their original function as a knowledge-graph system. The author’s and reader’s engagement with the actual content of the item is, in this line of thinking, no longer meaningful or even relevant; It’s the interplay between the digital system and the item’s metadata record that matters.
It’s October and I’ve been watching a lot of horror movies lately. Some notables:
Wolfen was one of three major werewolf movies released in 1981, alongside An American Werewolf in London and The Howling. It’s less-remembered than its counterparts, but having now seen all three, I can safely say it’s the best one. Genre-wise, Howling and American are more traditional creature-features, whereas Wolfen is a police procedural with supernatural elements. Shot on location in shithole-era NYC, we follow a police detective brought back from “retirement” (read: drinking problem) as he investigates a series of murders. Taking of Phelam 123 vibes. Solid script and an outstanding cast (Albert Finney, Gregory Hines, Edward James Olmos, Tom Noonan, Diane Venora). Unusually for a werewolf story, the overarching metaphor is not the interplay between an individual’s desires and their societally-mandated repression. The wolf-view FX are excellent, featuring an early use of the in-camera technique that would be later adapted for the Predator’s infrared vision.
Raiders of the Living Dead is as wacky as its name suggests. A tiny, cheapo film studio in New Jersey bought an unfinished zombie movie, and tacked on newly-added shots to round out the story. The final product is meandering, incomprehensible, and an absolute joy to watch. Iconically stilted line readings; terrible FX; amazing hair; hilariously obvious day-for-night shots; A legitamately incredible soundtrack; A “boy genius” who assembles a lazer gun from a VCR… this movie has it all. 10/10 – Can’t recommend this movie highly enough.
Oddity was pretty good, some legit jump scares and overwhelming tension at times.