Spring+2007+Question+1B


 * Ranganathan's Third Law states “every book its reader.” What does this mean? Choose one kind of information agency and describe how this law might (1) affect the values that guide the information agency and (2) be applied to the design of policy, services, and organizational structure in that information agency?

--** Jody: "Every book its reader" suggests that every information source has an audience which will find it useful, if the audience can indeed locate the information source. For a digital library service, this law would recommend a high value on accessibility for a variety of audiences and methods of access. Hence, the policies would then require the use of delivery standards and methods which enable access and use via various methods. For example, the latest version of xhtml has supportive features for screenreaders, for the visually impaired. Delivery in formats readable by hand-held devices could be very important to reach the reader. Providing accessibility via ontology mapping from the given metadata to the search terms familiar to the audience is another accommodation which enables profile-based search support. Support of unicode and multiple languages may be critical to reach the audience. Building and submitting sitemaps to web search engines, translating the metadata to MARC for upload into the local OPAC, providing OAI records for harvesting, developing RSS/ATOM feeds, and more, may be necessary to place the information into the hands of the user who needs it. The organizational structure of the digital library service would have to reflect its values in order to support this; sufficient programmers would need to be hired, with competent managers who stay abreast of the continually evolving digital field. Sufficient metadata specialists would be employed, as they would need to provide and maintain ontologies and ontology mappings, and develop authority lists appropriate for the materials and their audiences.