Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> Even Ranganthan isn't actually God. We are allowed to critically
> examine these things, 100 years after they were founded, for a VERY
> different environment than the one we are now in.
Actually, Ranganathan *is* God. Now allow me to quote scripture:
"A little reflection will show how irrational it is to argue that
because we had been doing something in a particular way in the past and
any changeover means trouble, cost etc., we should rule out all attempts
to change. This argument will tie all future to a year of the past. That
is not the way in which the world grows. The industries themselves do
not grow that way. A costly machinery of 1949 is scrapped in 1950 to
give place to a totally new design because it is more efficient. The
industries do not hesitate to finance such a change-over. On the other
hand they know that they will suffer if they do not change-over. The
industries should take a similar view of the machinery of library
classification also and provide the finance necessary to rebuild it. The
library profession too should become more aware of the crumbling of the
present foundations of classification, which still rest on arbitrary
numbering at bottom, and put up a case for a re-design of the
foundations in the light of the factors which led to its break-down and
the methods of research and growth which prevail now and are likely to
prevail in the future as far as they can be foreseen leading to new
formations in the field of knowledge."
- Ranganathan, _Philosophy of Library Classification_ (1951), p. 86
Received on Fri Jun 08 2007 - 17:12:24 EDT