The Fourth Law

Save the Time of the Reader.  That is S.R. Ranganathan's Fourth Law of Library Science.  Unlike the first three laws, this one "makes its approach from the side of the readers."  While he initially states that the Fourth Law is demonstrated "from the moment he [the reader] enters the library," he later discusses the importance of saving the time of the reader to get to the library by appropriate placement of library buildings, branches, and mobile libraries.  A more modern approach would include online manifestations of library resources and services.

The author starts with a review of the "Closed System" of library stacks, which required readers to scour catalog books or cards, fill out slips with the required information precisely transcribed, submit those slips to the appropriate person, and wait...and wait...and wait...from an average of 30 minutes to upwards of hours.  Just to receive the books, or to be told that they weren't available or that the information was not correct.

Of course, Ranganathan was very supportive of the Open Access system.  Indeed, I think he would also be very supportive the 21st century version of Open Access - having books and articles freely available, at least online.  In addition to supporting the Fourth Law, he advocated Open Access shelving "on the grounds of national economy", given how much time is wasted by the researcher or assistant waiting.  He calculated 36,000 man-hours were wasted at his Madras University library, based on number of visits and average time waiting.

Another development that Ranganathan cheered as in support of the Fourth Law was the arrangement of non-fiction books on the shelf by subject.  Again, he supported his claims by providing calculations of time needed to locate books on a topic if the shelves were arranged by author.  He also advocated having the most heavily used subjects located closer to the front of the library for easier access (think the opposite of grocery stores, which put their most wanted items in the back forcing us to walk by things we wouldn't otherwise think about). My concern with this idea is that it is not predictable and thus could be consider not user-friendly.

Interestingly, when discussing charging systems and staff efficiencies, Ranganathan heavily advocates using the then-modern card-based systems rather the more common log-based systems.  This was new at that time, using cards to hold a set of information about a book or a reader and then filing the cards for easy retrieval.  The examples he provided clearly demonstrated the beginnings of databases, with each card a record which included a number of fields (boxes and lines).  It is no wonder that Ranganathan was an early advocate of computer automation of library-related tasks.

Like the other 3 Laws, the Fourth Law can be applied to all aspects of librarianship and library service in a variety of ways, including:

• Collection Development - Ranganathan focuses largely on improving the efficiency of procedures and tasks in order to get the books to the readers more quickly.  His suggestions were largely technical, with examples of cards for improving the tracking of book selection and acquisition.  I would add that proper book selection itself saves the time of the reader by having the right books available in the first place.  It also saves the time of the reader to sort through a more limited set of resources that have already been selected for their quality and usefulness.
• Cataloging & Technical Services - As mentioned in previous posts, Ranganathan strongly advocated for proper subject analysis in the catalog record.  This was particularly important for books that had interdisciplinary content or critiqued works from other authors.  He provided some examples that demonstrated how time-consuming it would be for a reader to find the right books by scanning them individually, rather than find the cross-reference cards for the desired topic or author.  
• Reference - The author notes that reference staff should acquire greater familiarity with the bibliography tools and the library's collection more rapidly than most users, given their regular use of this material.  However, there is a reluctance to hire a sufficient number of staff to meet the needs of the community.  This most apparent in universities, where "academic libraries seem to be lacking in their power to perceive the value of time and are hence halting in appreciating the need for such staff."  He mentions the two basic types of reference services provided in libraries - Ready Reference, which requires quick thinking and good memory, and Long-Range Reference, which requires specialization in a subject area, as well as ability to approach and interact with a range of reader experiences and knowledge.  It would be interesting re-examine this issue today - in this day and age of greater self-service and online Ready Reference sources, are library reference services properly staffed?
• Programming & Marketing - While not explicitly mentioned by Ranganathan, the programming and promotional efforts of libraries also demonstrate the value of the Fourth Law. He does advocate for proper placement of libraries, strongly supporting centralized locations for urban areas, and strategic placement of branches for larger areas.  He also mentions the growing value of mobile libraries, using motorized and animal-driven vehicles, when necessary.   
• User Training & Education - While not specifically mentioned by Ranganathan, I believe that user training and education can have the greatest effect on saving the reader's time.  By teaching the users to fish, these librarians save them their time of having to wait in line for assistance and explain their need (often multiple times before their need is correctly expressed and communicated).  This is especially true for students and researchers who would likely need to find similar resources many times.

The Fifth Law

I find Ranganathan's Fifth Law of Library Science the most intriguing: The Library is a Growing Organism.  While the First Law can be considered a "Trivial Truism", which he compares to Newton's First Law of Motion, the Fifth Law is an abstraction of natural laws.  Essentially, "an organism which ceases to grow will petrify and perish."  Without this understanding, librarians and library administrators deny their charges the necessary nutrition (funding) and nurturing (planning), and these libraries will stagnate (loose their impact) and die (closed due to lack of interest or support).

He describes both growth in size (of collections, of readers, of staff), as well as in form (evolution), although he devotes most of this chapter on the former.  Ranganathan had already spent much of the first half of the book detailing the evolution of the laws of library science from "Books are for Preservation" to "Books are for use", and from "Books are for the Chosen Few" to "Every Reader His Book".  And while he "cannot anticipate fully...what further stages of evolution are in store for this Growing Organism -- the library...", his Fifth Law ensures the understanding that libraries will continue to grow and evolve, or they will perish.

Regarding the growth in size, Ranganathan laments the "modesty" that library administrators underestimate the rate of growth of their charges. Even worse, he charges, is acting on this assumption of little change, and setting in motion "a faulty organisation obstructing the free development of a library...to its full stature."

He then associates library collection sizes with publication rates in the world.  He lists the book production for 1927.  I added 2011 numbers for comparison:

Country	1927	2011	Rate
Russia	36,680	123,336	336%
Germany	31,026	93,124	300%
Japan	19,967	78,555	393%
India	17,120	82,537	482%
Great Britain	13,810	206,000	1492%
France	11,922	67,278	564%
United States	10,153	288,355	2840%

Ranganathan then lists the annual rates of accession in some of the largest libraries, listed here with the latest rates I could find:

Library	1927	2011	Rate	Source
Library of Congress	202,111	454,212	225%	2010 Annual Report
Cambridge University Library	90,916	139,948	154%	2010 Annual Report
Birmingham Public Library	28,566	166,847	584%	Local Library Standards Audit 2010-2011
Imperial Library, Calcutta	7,832	62,773	801%	Calculated by comparing data from the Encyclopedia of Library Science1 and the National Library's Web site

1. Gaur, R. C., Jeyaraj, V., & Kumar, K. (2009). India: Libraries, archives and museums. Encyclopedia of library and information sciences, third edition (pp. 2291-2329) Taylor & Francis. doi:doi:10.1081/E-ELIS3-120044942


I wanted to include others listed, but getting the acquisitions data on libraries is not easy.


It is interesting, though, that it appears that Ranganathan's attempt to associate publication rates with library collection size has broken down over time. It is interesting that the LoC acquisitions was only two & a quarter times the number of over 80 years before, while the number of items published is 28 times. This indicates that libraries have ceased being the storehouses (even the LoC) of all information. That merely changes the relationship of the publication rates with the collection growth rates.


But Ranganathan moves on to describe how libraries should be able to accommodate the natural growth (which R. assumed would continue unabated). After addressing how to make the physical building and furniture flexible for this growth in size, he then addresses the need for the classification system to accommodate growth. Not unsurprisingly, he laments the Library of Congress Classification System for using a "primitive method of leaving gaps int he ordinary serial use of numbers," while promoting Dewey's system as "a demonstration of the immense potentiality of the decimal fraction." But most of all, he admonishes libraries to use standard classifications rather than tweaking systems or making their own.. He does mention the Colon Classification system he was then developing (at the time of the second edition), in that its mixed alphanumeric format and use of decimal formats are able to apply the three aspects of analytico-synthetic scheme: phase, facet and zone.


Next, Ranganathan turns his attention to the growth in number of readers that will inevitably occur as both the population increases and the Second Law brings about changes to that population (greater availability of reading material, increased literacy, "open access" shelves). I worry a bit, though, that with the decreasing emphasis on reading print books, libraries have been moving their books into long-term storage. While there have been improvements that decrease the amount of time it takes to retrieve a book, this policy effectively closes the stacks again, reversing the efforts made over a century ago. As electronic books can eventually replace print books, the print-to-electronic ratio may take a while to reach 1:1. Will the shift of collections reduce the availability of materials to such an extent that it has a detrimental effect on access to information?


Finally, he addresses not only the growth in size of the library, but also in form. Here, however, his foresight is limited and he focuses the progress that has already occurred. He discusses the gradual shift from keeping books chained like prisoners to "stock-taking" to limited "stock-use" to the "highly differentiated and complicated character of the organisation of the library to-day". He returns to the "growing organism" metaphor by celebrating the variety of libraries as "species" with their own "problems and peculiarities" but also with "common features".  


He ends this chapter on his final law detailing "the vital principle of the library" -

"it [the library] is an instrument of universal education, and assembles together and freely distributes all the tools of education and disseminates knowledge with their aid."

There would be no better way for S.R. Ranganathan to end his treatise on library science and librarianship.  

Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science

I've been devoting my off-time reading to that classic of librarianship that many (although I wonder if most) librarians have heard of but few have read (including myself): The Five Laws of Library Science by S.R. Ranganathan.  There is some controversy regarding sufficient exposure to the 5 Laws to budding librarians - many more recent graduates are not aware of Ranganathan and his laws.  But a quick search on the Web does return a healthy set of relevant results, including the listing on Amazon of a recent printing, several published journal articles, and a plethora of items from the library blog-world.

There are a number of articles that are devoted to interpreting, revising, enhancing, and applying the laws in our more modern-day world, but I have been avoiding these until I complete my first full reading.  I am taking my time, making notes, recording notable statements, and being particularly thoughtful about what is written, the context in which the ideas were conceived, the progress that has been made since their conception, and the relevance to my current ideas of librarianship and library science.

By the second printing of his book, Ranganathan was already considering how to expand his laws from "books" to the broader scope of resources.  At this time, 1956, "documentation" was the term used for this generalization.  However, "Documentation is for use" and "Every reader his or her documentation" just doesn't sound as universal and classical as the original, "Books are for use" and "Every reader his book".  It is easy for me to accept the generalizations of "his" to including all people (Ranganathan places emphasis on extending access to books to women and girls, among other oppressed groups), and "books" to include all resources.

It is interesting that Ranganathan was a mathematician by training, a socialist in political thought, and a humanist at heart. The field was lucky to have had this combination in a person to distill what we do and have done and will continue to do down to these fundamentals.  Each law can be applied to each facet of the profession.  I would like to spread this message over several days by concentrating on each law and how librarians and library staff fulfill these laws with their everyday work.

Second Law: Every Reader His or Her Book

Ranganathan places special emphasis to the Second Law: Every reader his book.  He devotes three full chapters - first to its history and growth from "Books for the Chosen Few", to its uneven spread throughout the world, and finally to the costs and implications of its fulfillment.  It is clear that he considers libraries closely linked with education, but for all people, not just for children.  When lamenting the resistance to universal education and the Second Law, he proudly states that "[t]he Second Law will not take a defeat. It must win ultimately" [section 2182].

In the first chapter on the Second Law, Ranganathan delves into the development of this idea through the expansion of education to formerly-deprived groups.  He focuses on disparities in education and in access to books based on class divisions, gender, locality (urban vs. rural), and "normal and abnormal".  This last disparity is interesting, because he refers not only to those with physical disabilities, but also those who are illiterate (a terribly common problem in India at the time), incarcerated, or the infirm.  He emphasizes how all these individuals should have the opportunity for education through access to books, which could be made available physically (mobile carts in the hospital, prison libraries, books in Braille), or through other means (reading to the illiterate).

The second chapter about the Second Law was, at first, a bit difficult to slog through.  It is, essentially, a trip around the world providing examples of how the 2nd Law is (or is not) being implemented in different countries.  He starts, interestingly enough, in America, which he believes had made the most progress, primarily due to the work of Andrew Carnegie and the Carnegie Foundation.  He traverses to Canada and the UK next, linked not only by common language but also by the Carnegie Foundation, which included funds to support libraries in these lands.  I learned much about the development of librarianship and libraries in these countries, not only related to geography, but also history (between the wars) and politics (growth of fascism and communism).  He ends each section with applications in his own country of India - from the reading circles of the Soviet Union to help combat illiteracy, to the impressive Danish coordination of libraries to ensure appropriate distribution of books throughout the country.

The final chapter on the Second Law details what he believes are the obligations required to fully implement "its message".  Dissecting the statement of the law, he stresses that the words "Every" and "His or Her" "keep the secret of the implications."  For "varied is the taste of the world...[and] varied are the requirements of the readers."  When discussing the obligations of the state (finance, legislation and coordination), he emphasizes the need for good statesmanship, for the knowledge of the value of education and libraries is "rarely realised by the general taxpayer...Few are the statesmen who possess this far-sightedness and courage of conviction."  These truths are still evident today.  Ranganathan ends this chapter on the obligations of the reader - essentially justification for rules that are meant to ensure the equitable access of books within a library based on the Golden Rule.

But it is the obligations of the Library System and Library Staff that are particularly relevant to my post today.  As with the First Law, I have been trying to envision how these could be applied to various branches or areas of specialization within any library.  Instead of my ideas, here are some explicit instructions from the author himself:

• Every reader his book:
• Collection Development - Know your readers and know the books..."specialization with a local bias."  If your library has branches or departments (like academic), limit the number of copies of standard references to a minimum and enable interlibrary or interdepartmental loans.  Provide the reference works that are too costly for individuals to own.  But above all, know the readers, "understanding and anticipating their needs.  This can only be done by actual contact with the readers."
• Cataloging & Technical Services - Stresses the importance of subject analysis in catalogs, given that "books are mostly of a composite nature...[and] very few of them are of a 'monograph' type."  I also wanted to throw out my own ideas here - Make the catalog available to the readers where they "live" - such as search engines, making the catalog open for indexing.  
• Reference - Here Ranganathan shifts the emphasis from "every" to "his or her", stating that the Reference Librarian has a duty not merely to "dole out across the counter the books that are asked for," but "to know the reader, to know the books, and to actually help in finding..." by invoking the Second Law.  This may require special training not only in using the bibliographic aids, but also in the techniques of adult education and even psychology.
• Library Administration - Provide for adequate number, quality, and training of staff to ensure that books are made available in a timely manner.  In addition, make wise decisions about location and hours of operation to ensure that people have the best opportunity to visit.  I would also add that making as many library services available online as possible would help bring the reader close to the books. 

The First Law: Books are for Use

For the First Law, Books are for Use, Ranganathan first provides a brief history of the expanding availability of books from the severe restrictions of the Middle Ages (with their chains) to the then-modern idea of Open Access (no, not publishing, but opening the stacks to browsing).  The long struggle of the First Law to emerge was due in no small part to "inherited habit" of the concept of "Books are for Preservation", even when preservation was no longer as critical due to improvements in printing and increased availability of copies.  R. stresses the that the "Modern Librarian, who has faith in the law that 'Books are for use', is happy only when his readers make his shelves constantly empty" (emphasis added).

Ranganathan provides some explicit examples of how modern libraries could enable this law to its fullest extent, including selection of the the most convenient location (usually the center of town rather than the outskirts), the hours of operation (should include some evening hours), even the furniture (should be comfortable).  Much as we look to Starbucks, Amazon, and B&N to emulate convenience, Ranganathan related the location and hours of the library to emulate those of a shop for its customers.

There follows an amusing imaginary dialogue involving the Rule of Least Cost, Rule of Least Space and the First Law.  Each of the former two attempt to argue against the First Law, but using reason and logic, she prevails.  If only such dialogues were so easy to win.

Finally, Ranganathan then discusses how the attitudes of library staff have been the most difficult to adjust to the First Law.  His statement about the "enormous struggle [that] has been going on for the past 50 years to adjust the Library Staff to the needs of this new concept" could apply just as well to the use of electronic books as it did to Open Access (well, change "50 years" to "5 years").  He then provides the justification for a qualified and educated library staff, advocating that librarianship should be post-graduate degree because of the need for subject expertise.  

• Books Are For Use:
• Collection Development - choose the books that will most likely be used. This requires looking beyond "what's good for them" to "what reader's want".
• Cataloging and technical services - make the books easy to find and access.  This requires being an interface between the books contents and the community's culture and language.  
• Reference - be active in getting the books into the hands of the readers and used.  This requires knowing how to approach the patrons, how to read them, what they want or need, and the best ways to get the book, information, etc. to them.
• Progamming and marketing - promote the books, authors, stories, programs and resources that will create the demand.  Clients cannot demand for what they are not aware exists.
• User Training and Education - teach the patrons how to find the books more easily so that they can be used.

Finally, here are some of my favorite quotes from this section of his classic work:

• "...the trinity of the library - books, staff and readers."
• "When the First Law became accepted over 'Books are for Preservation', Librarianship effectively became a profession."
• "Every moment, the Library Staff should remember that 'Books are for Use'...They should never forget that in libraries, books are collected for USE, prepared for USE, kept for USE and served for USE."
• "A library is a collection of books kept for use...Librarianship, then, is connecting a user and a book.  Hence, the very life of a library is in the personal service given to the people."
  

The Third Law: Every Book Its Reader

There is a subtle, but key difference between Ranganathan's Second and Third Laws.  While the Second Law is also expresssed as, "Every Reader Should Be Served His or Her Book", the Third Law ("Every Book Its Reader") is similarly expressed as "Every Book Should Be Helped To Find Its Reader".  These laws form a complementary association, much like the yin and the yang of Chinese philosophy.

This Third Law is also complementary with the First Law ("Books are for Use"):

The First Law revolutionised the outlook of libraries; the Third Law would make that revolution as thorough as possible.

Ranganthan demonstrates the Third Law by the "most prominent means" at that time, the Open Access System.  For those unfamiliar with library history, this refers to the opening of shelves or stacks to the readers, and not to some pre-digital publishing environment.  Most libraries through the 19th century, particularly academic libraries, kept their stacks closed to the users.  Readers would refer to catalogs (mostly cut-and-paste style, only later were cards used), record their selections on request slips and wait their turn before being able to view the books.  The Open Access system provided readers "the opportunity to see and examine the book collection with as much freedom as in one's own private library."

In addition to this innovation, Ranganathan also mentions the value of subject-oriented arrangement of books on the shelves, combined with the subject cross-references in the catalog.   These he goes into more detail when discussing the Fourth Law, but he holds these methods as prime examples of the implementation of the Third Law.  Here are some others that either he mentioned or that I considered relevant:

• Every book its reader:
• Collection Development - Use the selection tools wisely, being aware of the source, the intended audience, the frequency of updating.  Infer suggestions for selection from readers' tastes, including those directly made, reference encounters, vocations and occupations of the community, prospective events, and interviews with community leaders.  But Ranganathan also considers there to be some room for the more "haphazard" or serendipitous selections. 
• Cataloging & Technical Services -  Ensure that the books are fully analyzed to include the appropriate subject headings, as well as plenty of associated keywords that enable the reader to find her book. Ensure that the processes for making works available flow smoothly and swiftly.  When making changes, consider carefully the necessity of removing the item from circulation, even for a limited period.
• Reference - Do not simply state: "Provide the books and keep out of the way of the reader."  He asserts that "average analytical card catalogue will always be in need of an interpreter."  Familiarize yourself well with the reference sources, the catalog system, the online databases, and especially the underutilized books and resources that enable you to easily match them to the individuals.  Finally, observe readers' "tastes and wants, their actions and reactions, and their likes and dislikes."
• Programming & Marketing -  Take advantage of all avenues of publicity, particularly targeted to potential readers in the community.  Provide an environment that enables all (librarians, staff and members) to share their experiences with their materials (books, CDs, DVDs, databases, etc.).  Nothing promotes better than word of mouth. Evaluate the library's programs and determine what improves circulation and usage and what is underused.  
• User Training & Education - Be aware of the most common misconceptions and mis-perceptions of libraries, books, and resources, and be prepared with proven ways of overcoming these.

The end of the beginning...

Reminder: This blog is being superseded by Libraries Are For Use.  Please update your feeds.
I've been doing some serious reconsideration about my blog -- are my words being read? (well, a little)  Do I have regular readers? (well, a few)  Am I satisfied with my work? (well, the writing is OK, but the response has been disappointing)  What can I do differently?

For one thing, I've never been satisfied with the name.  I had never read the work on which the name of this blog was based (Being and Nothingness), nor had I explored Sartre's philosophy in any depth...I had just considered the idea of considering librarianship from an existential perspective (what little I know about existentialism). I was particularly interested in bringing together the theoretical or philosophical ideas of, with the practice of librarianship. But the name struck me (even then) as being a little too obscure and, well, pretentious.

Then there is the platform...I chose Blogger because that is what I had used years ago.  I already had my profile set up, I was familiar with the features, and it was easily tied in with my Google account.  However, it is, in my opinion, a little on the old-fashioned side, well, in Web terms.  It just seems so '90's.  When the NTLA blog was set up on WordPress, I liked that platform and decided it was time for a change.

After several weeks of transferring postings, and finally deciding on a template, I think the site is ready for a sneak preview.  I wanted a name the better reflects my own philosophy of my chosen profession, so I harkened back to my early postings about S.R. Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science.

Libraries are for Use is my new platform, my new soapbox, which I hope will generate a little more interest. I know, I know...changing blog names is like the character on Parks & Recreation changing his band names.  I could loose what few readers I have - would you leave?  I also know that content is more important than the name or platform.  If I want more readers, I need to write what readers want to read.  I'm working on that, too.  I'll be learning how to make infographics and writing more on more intriguing ideas.  I hope this change gives me some stimulation.

I will keep both blogs going for about a month.  In the meantime, please visit there and subscribe, Like, etc.  I've also got a PollDaddy poll asking for your input.

And thanks for listening.

Libraries by collection size, things you didn't learn in library school, and more...

I've been collecting a few items from my regular blog-reading about which I wanted to comment, but for which I hadn't found the time.  So rather than write a posting for each, I'll lump them together.

First, there is the Top 100 Libraries by Collection Size that was recently put out by ALA.  My very first thought was, really?  Collection size?  I thought this was a metric that was on its way out, but apparently it has more staying power than I had realized.  My next thought was, wow, Dallas Public Library (41) beats Houston P.L. (100) - woo hoo!  A third thought - drats, University of North Texas wouldn't have made the cut even if they included those academic libraries not in ARL.

Now that you should have recognized my own ambivalence to towards this stat, perhaps we should consider why this is.  Of course, it's a (relatively) easy thing to measure - how many books (although the lengthy caveat at the should give a hint to how complicated it is to measure number of books - by volumes? titles? items? etc.).  ...

In the blog, Letters to a Young Librarian, Jessica Olin listed the 10 Things I Didn't Learn in Library School, including:

• For most students, asking librarian for help is a last resort.
• Students don't know how to find a book in the stacks. 
• The library (the department) is not always in charge of how the library (the space) is used.
• Collection development is done differently in every library. 

This last struck me as rather obvious - after all, nothing is ever done the same way in every place (office, library, even military base).  After all, simply following Ranganathan's 5 Laws, it would be apparent that different libraries have different readers needing different works.

Finally, there was this review of the soon-to-be released special issue of Against the Grain that focuses on usage data.  Unfortunately, I just now sent in my check to subscribe to this trade journal, so I won't have access to the articles for a while (why can't we submit payment online!?!).  The reviewer, Scott McLemee, is an essayist with a background in the humanities, but he is not a librarian; this is both good and not-so-good for the same reason: outside perspective.  The emphasis of his blog posting is on the journal metrics, including impact factor, immediacy impact and h-index.  While initially developed for use in the scientific journals, these metrics have been gradually included in reviews of journals, articles and authors in the social sciences and humanities.  So it's not surprise that Scott raises concerns; what does surprise me is a humanities writer who does not express utter disdain for these measures.  True, there are issues with them, but there are also innumerable issues with the subjective measures of opinion (whether evaluating a journal for submitting an article or adding to a collection, or evaluating the work of a researcher for tenure).  I do look forward to getting access soon to ATG.

"Invisibility" of libraries - good, bad or indifferent?

This item from a digital humanities blog was featured in LISNews.  Although I find his initial analogy of how libraries end up being used by members in unexpected ways a bit off (it's only being used as a backdrop - the library's resources itself are not used), I am an advocate of enabling others to repurpose the resources of the library.

The central question addressed in this short post is, "How can librarians at medium-sized or even small universities library help the digital humanities?"  Of course, because this is a digital humanities blog, the focus is clearly on the library being the helper (and not the other way around), but then we librarians tend to view ourselves as facilitators anyhow.

I'm currently reading Ranganathan's groundbreaking work on The Five Laws of Librarianship. Although exposed to the laws in library school, I had never had the pleasure to research in-depth.  The ideas of this blog post, of course, are a clear expression of that First Law: Books are for Use.  Even by the second edition of the work, the idea of "book" was being expanded beyond the bound monograph into the notion of "Documentation", so it is not a far leap to extend the law to digital humanities.

Tom Scheinfeldt, the owner of this blog, Found History, provides a few examples of this idea of enabling users to repurpose the libraries resources, which he describes as making the library's digital collections "invisible" to users:

• Enabling more effective search mechanisms - effectively reversing the goals of most Web sites and measuring how quickly people find things.
• Opening up the collections to APIs and third-party mashups - exposing our resources to the world
• Using social media to effectively re-distribute the content of our digital resources 

The specific suggestions listed in this piece were actually attributed to Wally Grotophorst, Associate University Librarian for Digital Programs and Systems at George Mason University (the author's institution) from his blog posting, What Happens To The Mid-Major Library?

• Focus on special collections 
• Start supporting data-driven research 
• Start supporting new modes of scholarly communication—financially, technically, and institutionally

I'm proud that the University of North Texas Libraries is putting these recommendations to task:

• The Digital Projects Unit has carefully examined the UNT Libraries' special collections and has a planned process for digitizing them.
• The 3rd Annual Open Source Symposium, scheduled for May, will focus on making research data accessible.
• The Libraries have worked collaboratively with IS faculty, Dr. William Moen, to enable the development and ultimately approval of a university-wide Open Access mandate, which is but a first step in supporting alternative modes of scholarly communication.

Oscars 2012: 'Fantastic Flying Books' wins for animated short film

Ranganathan's 5 Laws of Library Science in animated action:

1. Books are for use [the old, dying book only came to life when it was read]

2. Every reader his book, and

3. Every book its reader, and

4. Save the time of the reader [when Morris matches books with readers]

5. The library is a growing organisim [well, just watch it, you'll see...]

Oscars 2012: 'Fantastic Flying Books' wins for animated short film:

“The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” a 15-minute film about a man who cares for a library of lively books, won the Academy Award for animated short film on Sunday night.

More at L.A. Times

You win some, you loose some...

As I'm finishing my transition from Blogger (a Google product) to WordPress.com (NOT self-hosted WordPress.org), I'm encountering issues I did not expect.

One is...the usage stats are still higher for Blogger than for WordPress.  Why is that?  Could be because what few readers I have still subscribe to the Blogger feeds.  Woops!  I just realized that the RSS buttons are not appearing on the home page of my new site!  Well, this has been fixed.  But, if you subscribe to both - great!  But if you haven't subscribed to my Libraries are for Use site on WordPress.com, please do so now...here's the link: http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/feed/ .

I noticed that WordPress shows I have 33 Followers...it took me a while to look into that - turns out 32 are via my (now professional) Facebook.  I'm not sure that really qualifies - I mean, just because I thrust my postings on my Facebook friends doesn't mean they really follow.  But it is nice when folks mention something that was posted.

And what about my Google Followers?  I thank you for adding me to your Google+ profiles.  It's interesting to see who has shown interest in my ideas.  But Google pulled its app for displaying Google Friends Connect widget for WordPress.com sites (although there is one for the self-hosted WordPress.org sites).  I'm not ready to go self-hosted yet - so I ask my Google+ Followers to, well, follow me to WordPress.  There is a Google+ share button on my posts, though.

Finally, I don't know what to do with the postings on this Blogger site.  Some of the pages are still getting hits - particularly the Ranganathan pages.  But replacing my content with re-directs would be both time-consuming and disruptive to the Google search chain.  For now, I've added a note with the URL in the header of the blog.  I'll check into additional moves later.

I'm not regretting my decision to move - I really do like the template, and I'm hopeful that the WP connection will enable my blog to grow.  Any other ideas?

Thanks for listening.

Juxtapositions for today's high-minded professionals...

I've been noticing events, postings, and articles that center around the same basic theme - the battle of higher education against the bottom-line-focused executives that either administrate or serve on the boards of our institutions. Marshall Poe discusses the importance of the university press (a service closely tied to academic libraries), with some interesting insights into the problems these services face.  Then there is the UVa debacle with the summary dismissal of the president over "philosophical differences."  These differences were the result of the business-oriented board members' frustration with the "slowness" of the president's response to their concerns.

Those who pursued an academic career (like myself) claim that they purposefully avoided for-profit employment, sacrificing higher-pay and fancy perks, in return for both greater stability and a feeling of bettering the world.  Now that the corporate mentality has taken over politics, government, and organizational governance (even in the non-profit or social services world), we feel cheated. We have the worst of both worlds - lower-than-average pay for the same kind of work, greater demands on demonstrating outcomes, and greater risk of job loss.  This growing pressure also appears to be affecting the "warm fuzzies" we counted on getting from serving the youth, the growth of knowledge, the community (local and disciplinary).

While I do believe that, as custodians and beneficiaries of funding from taxes and gifts, we librarians have an obligation to be efficient and effective in our operations, I also firmly believe that governments and non-profit organizations cannot be run like a business.  A business' primary goal is to make money.  I do not deride that objective - I believe that capitalism based on fair-play is a far better economic model than government-run economies.  But if you look at the mission statements and goals of governments, non-profits, educational and other social services, making money is not mentioned.

Interestingly, I was reading a collection of classic papers and presentations in librarianship, one of which was from Ernest Cushing Richardson.  In his opinion piece published in the ALA Bulletin in 1927, he mentioned a "trend in librarianship in the present day" to "emphasize the method of efficiency, aptitude for action, the methods of modern salesmanship...over reflection, knowledge, learning, tact, sympathy, humane developments and other factors which go to set up a connection between the knowledge which is in books and the knowledge which lives in personality"1.  Richardson goes on to advocate that libraries are, indeed, a "real business which calls for business aptitude, business experience...".  He even points out the many aspects of library operations that have been adopted by business itself, including the use of the card file, the standardization of hte index card, and the idea of standards themselves.  However, he emphasizes that "the main thing about librarianship...[is] learning or knowledge," and that "the neglect of this aspect is even more fatal than the neglect of the business side."

So, it appears that this push-and-pull between running the library (and education) like a business and very foundations of connecting individuals to knowledge is not solely a 21st century concern. How can we, as both librarians and educators, work to ensure that we neglect neither the business nor the human or knowledge side?  Richardson advocates for a "philosophy of librarianship", one that gets to the "real nature and meaning of things."  This was a real problem to librarians in this time period, one for which I believe that Ranganathan made his greatest contribution.

Interestingly, Marshall Poe presents some very intriguing ideas about the decline of university presses.  While he does mention the influence of business-oriented approach to cutting anything that doesn't generate enough revenue, he also discusses the dependency of UP's on libraries to purchase these works (and the current decline in library budgets to continue this relationship), as well as the overall decline in reading in the population, even the learned population.  Finally, he blames the UP management themselves for not "getting" the Internet and how it could be leveraged to reduce the "brick and mortar" expenses and increase exposure and readership.  This, however, requires a major shift in a fundamental aspect of UP's: making content available for free.  This shift in focus from producing a product (a book) to providing a service (editing content provided by academics seeking recognition and promotion) could enable the presses to continue to serve their original mission of disseminating knowledge.

This appears to be one example of how the high-minded professionals in education and librarianship can manage the pressures to "economize" and change our practices and operations while still dealing in our core business of knowledge.

1. Richardson, Ernest Cushing. "Book and Person Who Knows the Book."  In, American Library Philosophy: An Anthology.  McCrimmon, Barbara, ed.  Hamden, CT: Shoe String Press, 1975; ppg. 51-62.

Thinking about the value of libraries

This news story caught my attention recently: D.C. to cut 34 school librarians as they are a poor investment.  The news post is a brief summary of the story in the Washington Post and includes this statement from the DC Public Schools Chancellor:

“We have invested in full-time librarians for the last three or four years and we haven't seen the kind of payoff we'd like.”  While noting that she is not disparaging librarians she said, "We have pulled away from programs where we haven't received a return on our investment.” 

The article implies that the ROI would be measured as improved test scores.  Similar cuts in other prominent school districts were also mentioned, including the LA district cutting school nurses.  This last point made me think about the potential value of such services that are more or less indirectly involved in education.

While there have been studies that have demonstrated direct correlations of quality libraries (measured by number of books per student) or quality librarians (measured by direct student-contact activities) and student achievement, the DC Chancellor did not see this association in her district.  Was the association too oblique or indirect? Was the data not available?  Did she even look at any data that was available?  Were the librarians given a decent chance (enough hours, enough resources, enough time with students)?

This requirement of demonstrated value and "return on investment" is quite familiar to libraries of all types and levels.  Unfortunately, librarians have been behind the curve on understanding this and coming up with useful tools of demonstrating their value.  Conversely, administrators and purse-string-holders are also behind the curve of recognizing that value should be demonstrated in more ways than money or test scores.  They are using similar reasons to justify elimination of what had been standard support services such as school nursing, speech therapy, and counseling.

(On a side note, I find it terribly hypocritical that those who uphold the value of classroom teachers and who justify the cutting of such services by stating they need to add more teachers in the classroom are, in fact, merely shifting the responsibility for these services onto the already heavy load that teachers must bear.  Not only must they teach a more rigid curriculum, but they are bearing more responsibility for ensuring children take their medications (oh, that's right - that's there responsibility for the school admin assistants), helping the depressed child deal with the disrupted family, teach a child to cope with stuttering, and teach all the children how to find and evaluate information or find a good book.  Some help they are giving teachers.)

Given that the powers-that-be are not changing their approach, that they have demonstrated their will to eliminate what cannot be demonstrated as valuable, and that this trend is decades old and shows no sign of receding, I believe we must accept and move on.  As the ACRL has been advocating through the Value of Academic Libraries project, librarians need research to quantify the value that we have known all along that libraries provide.   The blog has some good ideas on the kinds of questions that need to be, and could be, answered, including:

• How does use of print and digital collections correlate with course pass/fail rates, grades, or GPA?
• What is the monetary value of providing the resources students use to learn course content and complete assignments over alternative sources?
• Is there an association between grant funding success and access to library resources, particularly those used in the grant application?

This is a challenge to librarians and library administration.  But I don't think it is one that is insurmountable.  Nor do I believe the challenge can be ignored or considered contemptuously.  Recall Ranganathan's Fifth Law of Library Science - The Library is a Growing Organism.  I believe that libraries are not doomed, as long as they continue to evolve.  An organism that fails to grow or evolve fails to live.  Personally and professionally, I am excited to accept this challenge and prove the worthiness of the library and librarians (including myself) to the the most skeptical.

First Anniversary - Paper

Yesterday was the first anniversary of both my new job and my new blog.  Looking back at my postings (starting on January 1, 2012), I wanted to see what the pattern of my interests were.  Here are two Wordles created from my blog entries (split about mid-year):

^Through June, 2012^


^July-December, 2012^

They are quite similar, with the two most used words being "libraries" and "ideas".  Other common words include "circulation," "resources," "ebooks," "books," and "electronic."  I'm a little chagrined at the frequency of "rather" and "however".  Words that I expected to be more prominent were "value" and "collection".  However, "metrics," "model," and "measure" are pretty big.

I also looked back on my ideas that I was wanting to pursue, notably my "Top Ten Questions" and "What to Study Next".  Well, my eyes have always been bigger than my stomach, and I did not pursue a course of study in logic, epistemiology and professions.  I did, however, carefully read Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science (see postings), from which I had gained much insight into the history of librarianship.  My top questions, however, I think are still valid and worth pursuing, particularly those related to measuring the quality of a collection, and what impact the collection has on student learning and faculty research.

Ideas I imagine I will be pursuing over this next year include:

• Library Impact Data Project - they have a toolkit that I'd like to look into using
• Assessment in Action (ACRL)
• More thorough overlap analysis of A&I databases (for yet another round of budget cuts)
• Evaluation of accessibility of our resources for those who are print disabled

I also tried making a timeline from my postings using TimelineJS.  This was not as easy as I had hoped...But I got something interesting:


When I started this blog, I wasn't sure if it was something I could keep up.  I did not want to have a blog that laid fallow with rare postings.  Now that I know that I can write regularly, I need to decide if this is something that I want to continue doing.  And while I think it is perfectly valid to write for my own ear, my goal is to develop conversations and discussions.  While I want to contribute my voice, I would hope that others would want to listen.  So, I'm hoping to generate a little more interest in my work over the next year.

Redefining the Academic Library

Hmmm, I think that I've been tracking all the right blogs and reading all the right news related to library & information science, and there's still stuff that slips under the radar.  It's interesting the tracks information takes before reaching any one reader.  I imagine that if one were to visualize it, it would look like fractals.  Anyhow, I just now learned of the report from the University Leadership Council, Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services. Released late last year, I must have missed the initial blog postings about it while I was shifting jobs back into librarianship.  It had the usual run, including mentions on Stephen's Lighthouse, LIS Trends, and Current Cites.  Interestingly, I could not find it on the Chronicle of Higher Education or Inside Higher Ed (is there a bias against the Education Advisory Board?).

Regardless, the title piqued my curiosity when I found it rather indirectly - a posting in LISNews about a series of blog postings in Attempted Elegance (Killing Fear) that form an essay regarding the recommendations of this report.  Sort of like a friend told two friends who told two friends...and so on and so on...

This report is intriguing, summarizing the information from various resources, many of which I was already aware of (e.g. "Value of Academic Libraries", the Taiga Forum, ITHAKA, etc.).  What this report provides is the distillation of this information into a cohesive strategy that libraries could take to ensure that they remain relevant. Essentially, this report elegantly supports Ranganathan's Fifth Law of Library Science: The Library is a Growing Organism.  An organism must grow in order to survive; and growth does not necessarily mean growth in size, but also evolution or ability to adapt.

Now, the authors admit that "(p)rognosticators have been warning of the disruptive capacity of computers, networks, and other information technologies for at least three decades, and predictions of the library's demise can be found as far back as the 1960's."  The authors believe that this time, there are four key drivers of change in libraries that are "converging and pushing more academic libraries toward a fundamentally different approach."  (Note: while the report is focused on academic libraries, these drivers apply to all libraries.)  These key drivers are:

• Unsustainable costs (particularly of serials)
• Viable alternatives to patrons (I would argue the level of viability, particularly for sources of scholarly information)
• Declining usage (hmmm, maybe of circulation and basic reference services, but not of online resources and in-depth reference services)
• New patron demands

As you can see, I have some questions about these drivers, but I understand the jist of their argument.  When asked with which sources our users (faculty or students) start their research, the most common answer is Google.  That makes sense; even librarians start with Google.  But that does not mean that the library is no longer viable.  Articles from non-OA journals are still the primary source of scholarly communication, all of which require money to access the content, at least within the first 6 months to a year.  Few scholars can afford personal subscriptions to all of their journals, nor all of their books (especially in the humanities & social sciences).  I do not deny the growing trend in non-traditional scholarly communication, but perhaps our end users are still not truly aware of the extent of resources that continue to be provided by the library.


I'm also skeptical of the claim of declining usage.  Foot traffic in most libraries has actually grown, and when you measure online usage of library-provided resources, then there is no evidence of declining usage.  Print circulation, in-house use of print materials, and basic reference services have, indeed, decreased quite noticeably.  We should take into account, however, the impact that our actions have had and will have on these trends.  For instance, by providing fewer books on the shelves for browsing and advertising the use of electronic books, should we not expect that circulation of print will decline further?


From the research, the report a list of 30 "lessons learned" organized around four themes:

• Leveraging digital collections
• Rethinking the scholarly publishing model
• Repurposing library space
• Redeploying library staff

These are not new ideas, but these lessons summarized as such provide some good talking points that librarians and library administrators can use to plan their strategic objectives and make their case for "redefining the academic library."  Another useful tool is the checklist, based on lessons learned, for "understanding your current practice."  This is, essentially, a list of practical and concrete steps that address the issues in the report. While there would be no guarantee that implementing all 39 recommendations would make your library relevant to your institution, it would be interesting to see if there is a relationship between these changes and indicators of relevancy (e.g. funding levels, overall usage, integration of the library throughout the institution).  

What do others think about this report?  Is it merely another one of its ilk that is read by administrators, touted in this year's strategic planning session, and then tossed in the file cabinet never to be read again?  Does it accurately represent the research on the future of academic libraries?  Is it unjustly biased against traditional libraries and print materials?  Is it useful?