Page 33 - DLIS101_LIBRARY_AND_INFORMATION_SOCIETY

Library and Information Society

Notes 3. Every piece of information its user

4. Save the time of the information user
5. The universe of information is ever growing
Readers may note that in the fifth law the words ‘organism’ has been dropped.

Form VII

1. Books/Documents/Information/Knowledge is for use
2. Every Reader his Book/Document/Information/Knowledge
3. Ever Book/Document/Information/Knowledge its reader/user
4. Save the time of reader/user
5. Library/Information/Knowledge center is a growing organism
Here the author uses book/s and document/s both as if books are not documents. In the 3rd and
4th laws, reader/user both have been used. In the 3rd law ‘Every’ has been spelt as ‘Ever’. It is not
known why the author omitted ‘staff’ in the 4th law. The abundant use of capital letters is easily
visible. Will it be correct to say every knowledge its reader/user?

Form VIII

In Dasgupta’s paper one more form has been noticed which is being reproduced verbatim.
1. Tapes, files, records, relics and books are for use in the information delivery system.
2. To every media – ite, his/her medium
3. To every tape, record etc its utiliser
4. Save the downtown of the patron
5. a learning resource centre is a growing organism
In the 2nd law, possibly ‘ite’ will be ‘its’. In the fifth law, ‘a’ figuring at the beginning of the sentence
will be in capital.
Different forms of the Laws given above reveal several characteristics of the Laws. They are as
follows:
1. The wording of the Laws is not constant. Words are changing with the passage of time
and environment.
2. The Laws are finding applications in different environment, especially in different
organizations.
3. The Laws are not having any mathematical representation.
4. The Laws are not discipline specific.
5. The Laws can take many more forms depending on the organizations to which they are
applied.
The characteristics show that the Laws are not like the laws of science whose wording remains
unaltered for centuries and millennia, which in many cases are discipline-specific, and quite often
can be represented mathematically. The laws of bibliometrics and many other disciplines are also of
that type. Take for example, Zipf’s laws–they are basically linguistic laws and till date they did not
warrant even the change of a single word and can be represented mathematically. It has been shown
in a paper that Ranganathan’s five laws can also be condensed into a single scientific law.
Judging from a neutral point of view, these Laws may be viewed as basics, fundamentals or broad
principles having the potential of application in diverse environment with changed forms. They are
basically organizational laws. For example, Forms I and II are laws for the library, Form III for the

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