Every book its reader

Originally published in the Ketchikan Daily News, May 2007; written by Lisa Pearson.

Every profession has its philosophers and gurus, and librarianship is no different. One of the most important of these was S.R. Ranganathan (1892-1972), who was the librarian at the University of Madras. One of his greatest contributions to the field was the five laws of library science, two of which are: Every reader his book, and every book its reader. It’s a wonderful, comforting idea that somewhere out there is the perfect book for you, and it’s nice to know that every book that’s published will have at least one person who appreciates it. I certainly feel that every item we put on the shelf at the public library would be perfect for someone here in Ketchikan, even if I don’t know for whom (if I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t have bought the book in the first place). Therefore, one aspect of being a librarian is to act as a matchmaker between books and their readers.

But how to do this? That is the $64,000 question in the library world, and the solution has been to parade books in front of our patrons, much like a duenna chaperoning her charge around the plaza. This column is only one of the many ways in which we do this. We also appear every Thursday evening on KRBD and every other Friday on KTKN. We send press releases to the news outlets. We have an increasingly popular website (www.firstcitylibraries.org). We put up book displays and make pamphlets of books and videos for special topics. What else is left? The inevitable answer in this day and age is: a blog. Our particular blog is at ketchikanpubliclibrary.blogspot.com, and we have a link on our website to make it even easier.

While blogs are new enough to be unrecognized by my spell-checker, they have become an increasingly common way of communicating ideas and information. The library blog is no different, except that you will not find political tirades, personal angst, or intimate details in the postings. Instead, you will find a short summary of whatever new book, video, CD, audiobook, or magazine article that catches my eye as it comes across my desk. New additions to beloved series, unusual how-to books, audio editions of bestselling novels: all of these will be grist for the blog mill. So far I have posted entries about a new David Grisman CD, a book about spicing up your old wardrobe, and a new addition to the Phryne Fisher mystery series, amongst others. And why should you read the blog? Because the library added over 5,000 new titles last year, with another 5,000 new magazine issues. That’s almost 200 new items a week, and regardless of how often you visit the library and how assiduously you check the new shelves, there’s a very good chance that a wonderful new book – the book that you were destined to read, according to Ranganathan – has slipped past your notice. What better way to increase your chance of finding that life-changing, soul-enhancing book than by perusing our blog on a regular basis? And as a special treat for you Ad-Lib devotees, Sunday’s blog posting will reveal Ranganathan’s other three laws of library science.