Page:ABC of Library Science.pdf/24

 2. THE "PANCH SHEEL” OF LIBRARY SCIENCE Each branch of knowledge, be it one of Science Humanities or Technology, began with a small num ber of concepts and ideas. Man has been making progress gradually by his observations, experi- ments, experiences and inferences. Each branch of knowledge as a result grew into a large mass. When the proliferation of ideas went beyond limits, man began to correlate them. He attempted to explore the underlying principles that explain the inter- relations between the different phenomena and also those principles that unify and govern them. While each phenomenon was governed by a specific prin- ciple, a few principles were found to be all per- vasive, so to say, within each branch by virtue of being primordial in their nature. Thus a few basic laws came to be enunciated in each branch of knowledge. Library Science is no exception to it. The large body of facts that have grown from the time of Sumerian clay tablets to the modern microcarding developments, from the first revolution initiated by Melvil Dewey by his Decimal Classification to the modern concepts of Facet, Phase, and Zone Analysis of Dr. S. R. Ranganathan, are all found to be influenced and governed by a few fundamental principles or laws. These basic laws are five in number. They appear to be elementary and obvious yet they were least followed. They are so simple, yet they so pro- foundly influence and have complete sway over all the domains of Library Science. These laws were enunciated in 1928 by Dr. S. R. Ranganathan who