All Things Found

I went out to dinner with a friend last night who asked what I was currently working on for class.
“Oh, a paper about the modern library and how to improve service.”
“Okay,” he responded. “But what specifically are you saying?”
I realized half-way through my explanation that I’ve become specialized in my field (as any good graduate student should) because as I saw his eyes glaze and I knew that I was speaking some sort of library gibberish.

So who is this Ranganathan fellow, and why do we care about him today?

Long before computers, the Internet boom, digital collections, and self-checkout stations, S.R. Ranganathan composed a simple list of fundamental values for librarianship. Touted the “Five Laws of Library Science” (1931), Ranganathan’s ideals are incredibly progressive, even by today’s standards. When backed by the meme Library 2.0, the Five Laws are increasingly powerful, offering a modern and dynamic way of serving users in an ever-changing environment. This paper attempts to reexamine Ranganathan’s convictions, now nearly 80 years old, under the light of participatory service, adding a contemporary appraisal of his five fundamental principles.