RANGANATH AN ONLINE

摘要

An ideology of librarianship was created by Shiyali Ramamrita (SR) Ranganathan in his classic The Five Laws of Library Science (Bombay: Asia Pub. House, 1963). He formulated objectives and principles for the organization of, access to, and use of library materials. Given the changing information world, this is a good time to reconsider Ran-ganathan's five laws: 1) Books are for use. 2) Every reader, his book. 3) Every book, its reader. 4) Save the time of the reader. 5) A library is a growing organism. These normative laws embrace standards of practice and are fundamental to what librarians and researchers do. They have points of similarity with the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights, which might help explain why The Five Laws continue to have such consonance for American librarians. Now that researchers and librarians work in a digital en- vironment, it is useful to see how they apply to "library" activities in the electronic world (see Chart 1). To begin that examination we focus on the third law, "Every book, its reader," because of its particular relevance in the current proliferation of electronic resources.