LWB and Ranganathan’s Laws of Library Science

Librarians all over the world celebrate S. R. Ranganathan, whose Five Laws of Library Science, developed in India in the early 1930s, remain the code of honor that librarians live, and practice, by.

Ranganathan was born in a small town in British-ruled India, initially studying and teaching mathematics. When the University of Madras created a University Librarian position, Ranganathan studied up (via the Encyclopedia Brittanica), and impressed the University enough to be offered the position. To gather more information on his new profession, Ranganathan travelled to University College London and became immersed with developing a new, simpler system of book classification. The outcome was the system of colon classification, still in use today.

Ranganathan’s return to India coincided with the release of Mahatma Gandhi from prison, and, after his time studying Western librarianship in London, Ranganathan developed his Five Laws of Library Science. The laws were, and remain, significant for their focus on open, equal access to library services for everyone. The laws are:

Books are for use.
Every reader his [or her] book.
Every book its reader.
Save the time of the reader.
The library is a growing organism.

LWB, as a group that strives to improve access to information resources regardless of language, geography, or religion by forming partnerships with community organizations in developing regions, embraces Ranganathan.

Join us on Facebook over the next few weeks as we explore Ranganathan’s Five Laws through the work of LWB and our partner programs. Open access, in action.