Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 13:05:23 +0530 From: Sukhdev Singh <esukhdev@gmail.com> Dear Friends In the context "Open Access and Five Laws" messages [Given below] I would like to put my reactions. 1. The term "Open Access" was used by Dr. S.R Ranganathan to describe a library system where a "reader" is permitted to go to the stack and browse through the collection. This is what the modern libraries now follow. However, in those days, libraries were not "open access" as the readers were required to give details of required book to the Library Staff. At the most, a reader was permitted to access the Library Catalogue. By advocating "Open Access" he wanted to provide the benefits of "browsing approach" to the readers. 2. The Works of Dr. S.R Ranganathan are wonderful. I happen read the Original Works "FIVE LAWS and PROLEGOMENA to Library Classification. Five Laws has been written in a very interesting format of "Animated Talks / Dialogues". I wish these should be available now in Open Access [as understood these days] Mode. 3. SRELS may stand to loose financially. But then, There are ways to compensate. They may put up their own web site which may be sponsored / Or Advertisement revenue could be generated. 4. Technology / Hosting / Digitisation should not be a problem. --Sukhdev Singh, NIC. http://openmed.nic.in =======================REFERENCE MESSAGES=================== Message: 3 Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 11:57:39 +0530 (IST) From: "Prabhash.Rath" <prabhash@gipe.ernet.in> Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] Apply Open Access to Five Laws? To: MichaelMay.10726764@bloglines.com Cc: michael.p.may@earthlink.net, lis-forum@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Message-ID: <42007.202.41.82.51.1127370459.squirrel@gipe.ernet.in> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 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.