Two Heads are Better than One

Weinberger presents Ranganathan as an ambitious and meticulous man who was devoted to finding a classification system fit for his native country, India.  After years and years of using the Dewey Decimal System, Ranganathan came to the conclusion that Dewey was set on Christian relevancy excluding other religions and beliefs.  Similar to Dewey, Ranganathan’s eagerness to discover a new classification system left room for many improvements.  I believe that his “five laws of library science” have some substance yet I find one to be bothersome.  Ranganathan’s list is as followed:

               Books are for use.

               Every reader his/her books.

               Every book its readers.

               Save the time of the reader; save the time of the library staff.

               The library is a growing organism. (p. 79)

Personally, his fourth law, “Save the time of the reader; save the time of the library staff” takes away the idea that librarians and their staff dedicate their time day in and day out to their patrons, so the idea of saving time of the library staff remains a bit confusing to me. 

               Ranganathan’s Colon Classification, so appropriately named, seems to yet again stray away from a more detailed structure similar to Dewey.  The five components within this classification include; “personality, matter, energy, space, and time” (p. 80).  What Ranganthan does do opposed to Dewey is take it a deeper by adding values making the classifications more flexible.  I am impressed that with someone who did not wish to become a librarian dedicated his career path towards dismissing and/or adding on the Dewey Decimal System.  I am hesistant to believe that his system was any better than Dewey’s because what they both had in common was that they did not think of any type of advancements within their arena and also they focused predominantly on what affected their environment and not others. 

               After reading Weinberger’s take on Ranganathan as the equivalent of Darwin for Dewey I had to investigate more of how Dewey may have taken Ranganathan’s work.  I found an incredible audio clip of Ranganathan that may be of interest to some of you regarding Melvil Dewey.  Surprisingly, early on in Ranganathan’s research neither he nor Dewey had crossed paths until he had sent a Dewey his published work containing his “five laws of library science”.  What I gathered from Dewey’s response is that he would not be satisfied or accepting of someone trying to reformat or replace his classification system.  Ranganathan recalls Dewey saying, “It's very dangerous. I have suffered. People attribute all kinds of motives to you. Apart from that, if anything goes wrong, they will pounce upon you. It may cost your appointment. On the other hand, if you use a scheme which is established, which is used everywhere, which is not yours, if anything goes wrong, you will go scot free. Why do you think of doing another scheme of classification?"  This very idea made me ponder that there will never be a time where we are all in agreement with a system of classification.  While I understand Dewey’s concerns that there will always be negative feedback, I can also take away that there may have been a detest for someone whose classification system may overtake his somewhat outdated method.   

I highly recommend listening to the audio (the first few seconds are very noisy) while reading the transcript that our very own Weinberger transcribed in 2005.  I think that this interview with Ranganathan portrays a need for collaboration for a new system of classification.  Two heads may have been better than one in this quest for a new classification system. 

              

http://www.miskatonic.org/files/ranganathan-on-dewey.mp3

http://www.hyperorg.com/misc/ranganathan_on_dewey_transcript.html (Weinberger’s transcript)