Dear Colleagues, I am replying to the recent post about the article, "India pioneered open access publishing system" at http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/sep182005/state1942332005917.asp I believe S.R. Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science would have a greater impact on Open Access if the full text of the original edition of Five Laws was made freely available online for non-profit use by LIS professionals, scholars and students, and the general public worldwide. Although Five Laws is frequently cited as a seminal work in library and information science, the book itself does not appear to have ever been digitized or published in electronic format. Not even print copies of Five Laws are readily available for loan or sale, at least in the United States. According to OCLC's WorldCat, only about 50 libraries have copies of the first edition of Five Laws in their collections. While more libraries hold later editions and reprints, no editions of Five Laws appear to be in stock or currently available for sale from booksellers. A recent journal article estimates that between 4,000 and 5,000 students graduate from U.S. library schools each year. Since copies are not readily available, many of these students probably have not read Ranganathan's Five Laws, arguably the most important work in our field. The Sarada Ranganathan Endowment Laws for Library Science (SRELS) at Bangalore owns the copyright to the Five Laws of Library Science. Do any LIS-Forum subscribers have ideas about how SRELS might go about digitizing Five Laws? Are there any Indian libraries, universities, or non-profit organizations that would be able to donate technical expertise and equipment needed to adequately preserve and disseminate the text in digital format? Is any grant money available to help finance such a project? Would any librarians or students volunteer their time to help? Perhaps if we shared our ideas here and with SRELS at srels@vsnl.com, we could find a way to provide open access to the work identified as the origin of Open Access. Respectfully, Michael May Dubuque, Iowa, U.S. michael.p.may@earthlink.net
Dear all This is actually a very good and useful suggestion. Really we talk a lot about Prof Ranganathan's five laws but I doubt really how many of us have really gone through the original work. Most of us get the references from the secondary sources only. Of course there are some other works like Prolegomena...etc. which are also often referred to but rarely seen in original, five laws being a small book can well be digitised. Prabhash Rath
Dear Colleagues,
I am replying to the recent post about the article, "India pioneered open access publishing system" at http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/sep182005/state1942332005917.asp
I believe S.R. Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science would have a greater impact on Open Access if the full text of the original edition of Five Laws was made freely available online for non-profit use by LIS professionals, scholars and students, and the general public worldwide.
Although Five Laws is frequently cited as a seminal work in library and information science, the book itself does not appear to have ever been digitized or published in electronic format.
Not even print copies of Five Laws are readily available for loan or sale, at least in the United States. According to OCLC's WorldCat, only about 50 libraries have copies of the first edition of Five Laws in their collections. While more libraries hold later editions and reprints, no editions of Five Laws appear to be in stock or currently available for sale from booksellers.
A recent journal article estimates that between 4,000 and 5,000 students graduate from U.S. library schools each year. Since copies are not readily available, many of these students probably have not read Ranganathan's Five Laws, arguably the most important work in our field.
The Sarada Ranganathan Endowment Laws for Library Science (SRELS) at Bangalore owns the copyright to the Five Laws of Library Science. Do any LIS-Forum subscribers have ideas about how SRELS might go about digitizing Five Laws? Are there any Indian libraries, universities, or non-profit organizations that would be able to donate technical expertise and equipment needed to adequately preserve and disseminate the text in digital format? Is any grant money available to help finance such a project? Would any librarians or students volunteer their time to help?
Perhaps if we shared our ideas here and with SRELS at srels@vsnl.com, we could find a way to provide open access to the work identified as the origin of Open Access.
Respectfully,
Michael May Dubuque, Iowa, U.S. michael.p.may@earthlink.net _______________________________________________ LIS-Forum mailing list LIS-Forum@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum
Prabhash N. Rath, Ph. D. Documentation Officer Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics B M C C Road Pune - 411004 (India) Tel: +91-20-25650287 (O), +91-20-25678311 (R.) E-mail: prabhash@gipe.ernet.in, prabhashrath@yahoo.com
It will be great IF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF Prof. S R RANGANATHAN are made
available free on the web. [The entire writings of Gene Garfield, for
example, are available free on the web.] If the copyright holders of Prof.
Ranganathan's works are ready to place the collected works on the web, I am
sure Dr A R D Prasad of DRTC, Anita Coleman of Arizona State University and
Google will only be too glad to host them on their servers. May be one could
talk to BOAI for funds, if funds are needed.
Subbiah Arunachalam
----- Original Message -----
From:
Dear Colleagues,
I am replying to the recent post about the article, "India pioneered open access publishing system" at http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/sep182005/state1942332005917.asp
I believe S.R. Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science would have a greater impact on Open Access if the full text of the original edition of Five Laws was made freely available online for non-profit use by LIS professionals, scholars and students, and the general public worldwide.
Although Five Laws is frequently cited as a seminal work in library and information science, the book itself does not appear to have ever been digitized or published in electronic format.
Not even print copies of Five Laws are readily available for loan or sale, at least in the United States. According to OCLC's WorldCat, only about 50 libraries have copies of the first edition of Five Laws in their collections. While more libraries hold later editions and reprints, no editions of Five Laws appear to be in stock or currently available for sale from booksellers.
A recent journal article estimates that between 4,000 and 5,000 students graduate from U.S. library schools each year. Since copies are not readily available, many of these students probably have not read Ranganathan's Five Laws, arguably the most important work in our field.
The Sarada Ranganathan Endowment Laws for Library Science (SRELS) at Bangalore owns the copyright to the Five Laws of Library Science. Do any LIS-Forum subscribers have ideas about how SRELS might go about digitizing Five Laws? Are there any Indian libraries, universities, or non-profit organizations that would be able to donate technical expertise and equipment needed to adequately preserve and disseminate the text in digital format? Is any grant money available to help finance such a project? Would any librarians or students volunteer their time to help?
Perhaps if we shared our ideas here and with SRELS at srels@vsnl.com, we could find a way to provide open access to the work identified as the origin of Open Access.
Respectfully,
Michael May Dubuque, Iowa, U.S. michael.p.may@earthlink.net _______________________________________________ LIS-Forum mailing list LIS-Forum@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum
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MichaelMay.10726764＠bloglines.com -
Prabhash.Rath -
Subbiah Arunachalam