Hi, I’m Devin.
I’m currently in the middle of a wide-ranging, two-semester independent study on Ranganathan’s The Five Laws of Library Science.
This talk is focused on its writing style, which I found particularly notable and rather under-examined.
OK, very brief Bio:
S. R. Ranganathan was born in British-controlled India in eighteen ninety-two, and his education is both sacred and secular. He becomes a math professor, and in nineteen twenty-four, he’s appointed librarian at Madras University.
He travels to England for a yearlong intensive, and returns to India with a fire in his belly.
Over the next couple years he writes a series of articles and lectures that form the basis for the book, which is published in nineteen-thirty.
It’s written in English so it travels well, and is glowingly received both at home and abroad.
Ranganathan goes on to have long and storied career, but by the end of his life in nineteen seventy-two, his work had become somewhat insular and had begun to fade into “obsolescence.”
Fast-forward to nineteen-ninetey-five, when Michael Gorman publishes a splashy article in the ALA magazine that uses the Five Laws as a template for discussing librarianship in the digital age.
Gorman’s article re-introduces the Five Laws into the Western scholarly consciousness, and since then, there’s reliably a handful of Five Laws papers published each year.
But there’s kind of a framing problem with a lot of the post-Gorman work.
It tends to focus exclusively on the book’s distillation of the ethos of librarianship. But as George Roe comments, Western academics generally disregard the book’s deep political context.
“Western interest in Ranganathan has not tended to recognize the importance of the epic political struggles that were taking place in India during his lifetime…” [And that] “identification with the Indian independence movement was central to his library theory. Ranganathan’s pioneering work of the 1930s challenged the ideological structures of colonial rule, advocating libraries and librarians as agents of a national political awakening…”
Approaching The Five Laws through a more holistic lens, it becomes clear it’s just as much – if not more – a work of political advocacy, with the main goal of getting a robust public library system off the ground in India, in order to further the independence movement.
So – To make his case, Ranganathan is primarily addressing the upper-class, English-educated Indians who have the political connections to influence library legislation, and the money to support fledgling libraries.
And because the British have a nasty habit of banning works critical of the colonial system, he has tread a little lightly.
To achieve these goals, his mode of delivery is a decided departure from the current academic style typified by W. C. Berwick Sayers’ introduction to the book.
Instead, Ranganathan leans into a casual, disarming, and sometimes goofy delivery. He makes it easy to let some of his more radical ideas slip under the radar by intentionally writing a fun book.
In other words, it’s kind of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Ranganathan does not try to temper his enthusiasm, and unlike modern academics, he is unafraid of exclamation points.
When the titles of the FIVE LAWS appear in the text, they’re typically in all-caps, and often exclaimed. Here’s an example:
May the shadow of the ancient cedar in the public garden of the city of the Seven Hills never grow less! May it long provide shelter for this patriotic enterprise, in the service of the gospel, ‘BOOKS ARE FOR USE’! (12)
This quote also demonstrates Ranganathan’s frequent use of romanticism.
For example, in a later part of the book, he uses an extended metaphor of a garden to string together a lengthy literature review:
The Second Law of Library Science dropped the seeds of the Library Movement all through the world. Some fell on stony places, some among thorns, and some into good ground. But the seeds, that fell on the fields of the [America], appear to have been the first to sprout. They seem to have already reached the fruiting-stage and appear to have even commenced to scatter fresh seeds, far and wide. (154)
But the book’s distributed origin means one chapter’s baroque curlicues may be followed by workmanlike stringing in the next:
Perhaps the cheapest and the most easily available medium for library publicity is the Press. The library should keep itself in touch with the local newspapers. The newspapers would generally be willing to allow some space in the general news column and the local news column for information about the library. (319)
This stylistic potpourri keeps the reader on their toes, leading to a nicely varied and engaging reading experience.
This book is full of funny anecdotes.
The first chapter in particular is well-stocked with examples of stuffy oldschool librarians doing everything they can to avoid loaning books to patrons.
In another place, when the authorities of a library were solemnly discussing ways and means to meet a great increase in the issue of books, a veritable Daniel came “to judgement”.
“When do you have the greatest rush in the day?” asked Daniel.
“In the evening between 4 and 6”, somebody said.
“There you are,” came forth the solution, “Close the library at four instead of at six. That will end the bother.”
And the chapter on the THIRD LAW includes several anecdotes demonstrating the dramatic effect cross-referencing can have on a book’s circulation.
Another interesting example of the extraordinary power of subject cross-reference in finding for EVERY BOOK ITS READER is the case of the ponderous composite volumes constituting the Complete Works of Count Rumford. A cross-reference card with the heading “Coffee” to pages 615-660 of the fifth volume containing an essay entitled Of the excellent qualities of Coffee and the art of making it in the highest perfection made all the difference in the career of that volume. Instead of being an inert victim to the piercing ravages of silverfish, it began its unending series of triumphant marches to the residence of one reader after another. (311)
The Five Laws contains a couple of plays. These are typically designed to mimic conversations a potential librarian may encounter with school administrators or government officials unfamiliar with the operation of Western library systems.
The first play appears in the opening chapter and concerns interior design for libraries. The three characters here are anthropomorphized concepts: The First Law, and the sisters Rule of Least Cost and Rule of Least Space – nicknamed “Costie” and “Spacie.”
Two notable aspects of this play are repeated in the others:
There’s a concerted effort to demonstrate the kinds of compromises a librarian may need to make when dealing with limited resources or entrenched interests; and
political content can be voiced more freely in this dramaturgic setting.
For example, take this exchange:
Rule of Least Space: Costie!You remind me of the revolutionary words of Lord Lyton at the inauguration of the Public Library at Manchester in 1851. You remember his words, “A Library is not only a school, it is an arsenal and an armoury. Books are weapons; either for war or self-defence.”
Rule of Least Cost: Yes, I do. But they are the words of a pre-League of Nations-man. Our friend wants us to conceive the library as a regular peaceful workshop, which will prove to be a panacea for the ills of humanity and – what I am more concerned with – eliminate all wastage both in local administration and in the State.
Most post-Gorman work gives equal weight to THE FIVE LAWS; However, about half the book concerns THE SECOND LAW, which is where Ranganathan saw the greatest need for specific action in India. This part of the book is split into three chapters.
In the first of these, we get a fourteen-page play – that also includes a short song that the cast sings together. It’s formatted as a roundtable discussion between representatives of minority groups like the illiterate, the blind, sailors, the infirm, and the incarcerated.
Notable in that last group is a discussion of political prisoners from civil disobedience campaigns, the “Sunday-players and Salt-law-breakers” who “are usually the tallest intellectuals of a community” and “would like to have more serious books”. (p. 132)
The second of these chapters is a detailed lit review describing the growing establishment of international public library systems over the last century.
There’s some interesting nuggets in the section about the Soviet Union, concerning the robust government programs aimed at expanding literacy.
He contrasts this with the situation in India, whose use of the English language in academic publishing has caused serious information gaps for the general public.
The activities of the Publication Department of the Soviet Union illustrate the part that the State should play in the regeneration of a country like ours where more than half a century’s divorce between the intelligentsia and the mother tongue has crippled the latter and has hence left the masses in utter ignorance of the recent transformation of the scientific, economic, political and cultural world. (194)
He follows this up with a spicy passage clowning on Universities for being too self-absorbed, and the Finance Minister for being a penny-pincher:
The Universities may excuse themselves saying that the extension, rather than the dissemination, of knowledge was their primary duty and that, as they had not yet fulfilled even that primary duty owing to their absorption in the constant turning of the examination wheel, there was no near prospect of their developing an extension side. The Finance Minister of the Government, who seems to have been scared by the probable year-to-year profit and loss account of such an adventure, was unwilling to be convinced and pronounced that “The connection between the responsibility of the State for the general welfare of its citizens and the fostering of the publication of suitable books for their use is more rhetorical than convincing”. (196)
Speaking of spiciness – while discussing the Second Law, Ranganathan bemoans that Carnegie’s largess never quite made it around the horn.
Knowing how crucial private donations were to the development of the British library system, he needs to communicate to his upper-class peers.
But the way he decides to do this is basically by calling them a bunch of stuck-up phonies who don’t actually care about their fellow countrymen:
This tragic triumph of India in her fight against the intrusion of the Second Law of Library Science, nay, even of its precursor ‘EDUCATION FOR ALL’, 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 per cent. of her millions who can lisp in English.
Here’s some questions to roll around the next time you’re writing up some research.
Are there goals a less formal writing style will allow me to achieve with this text?
And if the answer is “eeeeh, not really?”:
Alright, I am swiftly run out of time, so I’ll just give a quick thank you to the organizers, and mention that you can get in touch with me here if you’re interested in more strange angles on this book.
That’s it for me. Goodnight!