Пять законов библиотековедения С. Р. Раганатана

Principles of library operations proposed by S. R. Ranganathan
The five laws of library science is a theory that S. R. Ranganathan proposed in 1931, detailing the principles of operating a library system. Many librarians from around the world accept the laws as the foundations of their philosophy. These laws, as presented in Ranganathan's The Five Laws of Library Science, are:
Books are for use. Every person his or her book. Every book its reader. Save the time of the reader. A library is a growing organism.

The first law of library science, "Books are for use," constitutes the basis for library services. This law means that books in libraries are not meant to be shut away from users. Ranganathan observed that books were often chained to prevent their removal and that the emphasis was on storage and preservation rather than use. He did not reject the notion that preservation and storage were important, but he asserted that the purpose of such activities should be to promote use. Without user access to materials, there is little value in these items. By emphasizing use, Dr. Ranganathan refocused the attention of the field to access related issues,

The second law of library science, "Every person his or her book," means that librarians are to serve a wide collection of patrons, acquire literature to fit a wide variety of needs, and refrain from prejudice or judging what specific patrons choose to read. Librarians should respect that everyone is different and that everyone has different tastes regarding the books they choose. After the publication of The Five Laws of Library Science, Ranganathan named children, the physically disabled, artisans, newly literate adults, the intellectually disabled, working class individuals, and individuals with niche interests as specific groups of potential readers that are served through the application of the second law. In addition, a library collection must represent the community it serves. Ranganathan said the fourth law in turn saves the time of the library staff through such practices as centralized classification and cataloging, documenting materials before sending them to the library that ordered them, and mechanizing methods for information retrieval.