James... this is a valiant attempt (and not pretentious), but I'm not in agreement. Ranganathan's "Laws of Library Science" are quite elegant, but the way some (by this some I do not mean you) have interpreted and mauled them to death have always seemed a bit pretentious and misguided so I don't see the need to impose news ones, or any at all.
It would be more beneficial to work on the objectives of a catalog, rather than trying to lay out laws for how the catalog is to be used and maintained. Ranganathan gave a series of Laws in the "Normative Principles" of his Prolegomena of Library Classification (2006 reprint of vol. 1, ed. 3). From the introduction to this chapter: "Normative Priniciples can be postulated for work in different levels --from the level of the basic process of thinking, through the level of library science as a discipline, to the level of each of its various sub-disciplines--such as, classification and cataloguing--and even to still deeper levels." (p. 113, Chapter DA). In this Chapter the whole set of Laws are: Law of Normative Principles, Laws of Library Science. Laws of Interpretation, Law of Impartiality, Law of Symmetry, Law of Parsimony, Law of Local Variations, Law of Osmosis. And, we need to keep in mind that he was primarily talking of classification. I don't think he had much use f!
or cataloguing. He wanted library classification to be regarded as a discipline and blamed the failure of that (in the US, at least) on "...the wrong tradition of not distinguishing between cataloguing and classification and regarding classification as merely embellishing the catalogue entry with a class number fished out from a schedule of rigid structure, with the aid of the index." (p. 31, Chapter AD) He felt students were taught to use the index of a classification "as a fishing rod".
The Librarian is all but invisible in his LS laws--only really implied in laws 4 and 5 (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 growning organism.)
We should take in a larger perspective than just the users/patrons and catalogers. Who are all the relevant players? The user, for sure. The 'information system' is another and of course the information objects themselves. I would follow R's order and start with the information resources themselves. Some may add the authors/creators. [For instance, see the work by Brian O’Connor, Jodi Kearns, and Rich Anderson (2008). Doing Things with Information: beyond indexing and abstracting. Libraries Unlimited. 1591585775. The authors present a functional representation web, a model giving the “social and idiosyncratic conventions for observation and action” of both the client (i.e., user) and author. The model takes in account use, question type, purpose of production. The authors write “Authors and users of their works each have a set of conventions.” (pg. 48). ]
What James has listed are much more procedural, not so much laws, which if we follow R's example, laws convey the most fundamental levels. For example, we could say "New knowledge replaces old knowledge" as a way of indicating that the 'universe of knowledge' and/or 'universe of information resources' is constantly growing and changing and requires our information systems and organizers to be aware of these changes, etc.; i.e., the catalog is in constant change (R said it first: a 'library is a growing organism'). More specifically I mean that new knoweldge is constantly replacing older knowledge that no longer correctly explains things, therefore we have a constant influx in the information resources that convey the knowledge.
This can all be brought back around FRBR and its model, too. For example, how would state simply that information objects have relationships (equivalent, derivative, etc.)? As well, the users tasks are given, I believe, at that fundamental level and are fundamentally what users/patrons do ---find discover ('every books its reader'?) identify select obtain/acquire navigate....
My next question is "What are the cataloger's (organizer's, indexer's) tasks?" which is where I see James' laws of catalogers addressing.
Just some thoughts.
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Shawne D. Miksa, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Library and Information Sciences
College of Information
University of North Texas
email: Shawne.Miksa_at_unt.edu
http://courses.unt.edu/smiksa/index.htm
office 940-565-3560 fax 940-565-3101
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________________________________________
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of James Weinheimer [j.weinheimer_at_AUR.EDU]
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 9:51 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: [NGC4LIB] New Laws
These are some ideas I've been kicking around. I also have some explanations
available, but I don't know if they are necessary, so I won't share those yet.
I realize this is completely pretentious, and I humbly ask forgiveness from
the great Ranganathan, but....
The Five Laws of *Library Catalogs* for the 21st Century
1. The catalog must be relevant to the needs of its patrons.
2. The catalog must change as the needs of its patrons change.
3. As much as possible, the catalog must help its patrons understand what
information is *really* available to them, not only what is held within the
local collection.
4. If patrons do not come to the catalog, the catalog must go to the patrons.
5. The catalog must include the knowledge and information of non-librarians.
Five Laws of *Library Catalog Records* for the 21st Century
1. Catalog records must be created and maintained efficiently.
2. Catalog records must reuse relevant data input by other agencies.
3. Catalog records must work coherently (i.e. interoperate) with catalog
records created by other cataloging agencies.
4. As much as possible, catalog records must work with resources made for
non-library purposes.
5 Catalog records must be made available for use by other developers in the
world.
Jim Weinheimer
Received on Tue Oct 27 2009 - 15:47:25 EDT