As far as I can tell, everyone feels the need to justify their new library-related blog. Here’s my justification for this one.
My interests in Library Land are varied: emerging technology, customer service, human resources, quality management. I consider these areas the organic side of librarianship — the parts that grow, develop, evolve.
I have named this blog “The Fifth Law,” a reference to S. R. Ranganathan’s fifth law of library science: “The library is a growing organism.” While Ranganathan focuses on the growth of a library’s collection (its books, its space for shelving, its room for reading), I think that it’s also important to focus on the word “organism” — the aspects of our libraries that are essentially alive, namely the people (the staff, the customers, and all the people in between). In short, I want to explore libraries in terms of policy and practice, in terms of management and innovation, and in terms of the people that they serve, both internally and externally.
My hope is that this blog will be of interest to the biblioblogosphere, as well as the management, human resources, and information technology blogospheres. I want to blend a variety of interests, all of which essentially boil down to best practices in libraries and information organizations.
So join the conversation — your thoughts are important to me, and I want to know what you think!
