DOCUMENTATION IN MANY LANDS *

4. DOC U MEN T : CON V E N T ION A LAN 0 NON - CON V E N T ION A L

Traces the pape r to the impact of the Brussels Gorig r e s s ,1955. Starts with the definition given in Heading and can-~ (1955). Analyses the conventional and non-conventionaldocuments covered by it. Describes a new species of docu-ment created by instrument-records of phenomena unmedi-ated by human intellect. Extends the definition so as to in-clude the new species. Examines the new work to be done inclassification' schedules and catalogue codes to rn eet theneeds of non-conventional document. Tightens the defini-tion so as to exclude materials and samples of commoditiesf r-orri the connotation of document.

1 EXPERIENCE 1

<, It was an August evening of 1950 in Wash,-ington. A large number of documentalists as-sembled at the residence of Mrs. Ruth Hookerfor dinner. Parthasarathy, myself and aFrenchman were the three non-Americans inthe group. A spont an eous chase of "Document"started. The conservatives confined its deno-tation to a conventional book, periodical, or aportion thereof, The Frenchmen started withthe ambitious definition of "any medium forcommunication"; this led to his accepting astatue as a document and even any exhibit in amuseum. Each one tried to talk every other byciting a concrete example believing the defini-tion proposed. That evening gave an excitingexperience. Since then I have been chasing thewill 0' the wisp through a succession of defini-tions. The closer and more comprehensive the

Continued from An lib sc 2, 1955, 122.

22

S. R. RAN G A N A J H A N

definition reached, the sharper looked the com-mission and the omission involved, even asclearer the cloth the more arrestingly it showsforth even the tiniest speck 'of dirt- I thought thatI had got the best result in the definition in-cluded in my Heading and canons: comparativestudy of five catalogue codes (Blunt & Sons),published in April, 1955.

11 Beneficent Call

But my self complacence was rudely dis-turbed at the International Congress of Libra-rians and Documentalists held in Brussels inSeptember, 1955. It was occasioned by twocalls. On 10 September, Dr. Bourgeois askedme to preside over the Ifl at s rn ee t in g on Audio-visual Materials. This was a pr obl ern . For Ihad had never acquired, organised, or servedsuch materials; nor had 1 devoted thought tothem at any time, or written upon them, Thesituation recalled to mind an anecdote of 1925.At the time, a member of a Borough Council ofEngland told me, "I am not a learned man, Ihave been for the first time elected to the Bor-ough Council. There is a convention that eachcouncillor should be assigned at least to oneStanding Committee. The high-brow old- guardshad themselves put into influential Committeessuch as those of Finance, Works and Personnel.

An lib sc

DOCUMENTATION IN MANY LANDS 4

There was some appropriateness in it. For, Ihave never read books and I therefore have anopen mind about books" I had a vacant mindabout audio-visual materials. However, I ac-cepted the call of Ifla for the reason that it re-membered Asia and felt it expedient to givesome place to it in the Congress - important orunimportant. Two days later, FID also askedrn e tel preside over its own meeting on Audiovisual Materials. Moreover, according to aprinciple in life, any invitation without any sin-ister motive may prove beneficial if acceptedand acted upon.

12 Audio Visual Material

These two calls made me spend midnightcurrent in reading the two preliminary repottson Audio Visual lI.laterials. The report to lflaby N. B. Moore of the Reynolds Audio VisualDepartment of the Rochester Public Library,U.S.A., was largely a descriptive account ofthe extent of the use of films in public libraryservice and adult education in U. S. A. It didnot in any way disturb my complacence aboutmy latest definition of "Document" Moreover,

a more important meeting on Theory of Clas-sification was being held by FID at the sametime. I, therefore, formally opened the Iflameeting and handed it over to the care of theVice-President, De Passe. But the report toFID by P. Loose of Holland did shock me outagreeably from the moo~ of self-cot;nplacenc~into which my definition of "Document" nadthrown me. For, Loose brought to notice a newkind of material, bound to figure in future in-c r ea s ing ly in the documentation work and docu-umentation service expected of documentalists.For, these form a section of the staff of a li-brary or of a library system, or of the librarypr ofe s s ion charged with the duty of bringing tothe notice of an advanced worker, exhaustivelyand expeditiously, every document - particul-arly the ones embodying rn icr o thought or ex-perience - with a direct or indirect bearing onthe specific topic, usually of tiny extension, onwhich the worker's mind is turned at the mo-ment. The discussion at the meeting was aboutto take an unfruitful turn by chasing the defini-tion of "Audio visual material". I averted itby persuading the members to accept a prov-

Mar J956 V 3 N J

i s iona.l definition by enumeration of the mater-ials Loose had in mind, and to proceed with thespecial problems of classification, cataloguing,service and maintenance created by them.

13 Experience 2

The new experience gained at this meetingat Brussels Congress has again pressed mymind in the pursuit of a further approximationto a precise definition of" Document" as. it isto be understood by documentalists. This paperis thus a result of the impact of the BrusselsCongress. I shall begin with the definition givenin the He adrng and canons. I shall sort out thevariety of materials likely to be handled bydocumentalists into those of the conventionalkind and of the non-conventional kind. Thiswill suggest the extensions and the restrictionsto be put on the definition. I shall also indicatethe new problems created by the non-conven-tional materials of different sorts in their clas-sification, cataloguing and maintenance

2 Provisional Definition

The following is the route along which thedefinition of "document" is reached. (1)ItThought-unit" is taken as an assumed term. (2)"Expres-sion thought" is defined as thought-unit expressedpressed in language or symbols or in any othermode, and made thereby communicable. (3)"Work" is used as a briefer synonym for "Ex_pressed thought" (4)" Embodied thought" isdefined as record of work on paper or othermaterial, fit for physical handling, transportacross space and preservation through time.(5) "Document" is used as a briefer synonymfor "Embodied thought". In my Social biblio-graphyll(Blunt and Sons) of 1952, it has beenshown that ease of physical handling of docu-ment implies a certain optimum weight, dur-ability, size and shape. These factors have,in course of time, made paper the conventionalmaterial to record on. Leaf, cloth, silk andvellum had been used in the past.

21 Conventional Kind

Apart from the use of paper, the conven-tional kind of docurnent has the work recorded

23

RANGANATHAN

on it in the phon et i.c s yrnb ol s fo r m ing thescript of an articulate language with Dr withoutil l uat r at ion e used as a help in the c ornrrrurric a ;t ion Df tb ought . This implies that the t hou ght c

c ont ent of the d oc urrrent is expressed essentially in an articulate language. Further in thec onvent iona.l kind of doc ument the r ec or d irig isdone by writing, typing, printing, Dr by s orn enear -printing proce... In the extreme end. ado c urrre nt is an independent physical entity byitself - say a b ook Dr a pamphlet. In public li-brary service and academic library service fo rstudents, bo okLs the dominant kind of documentin use. In busines s library service and r e-.search library service, pamphlet and an articlein a periodical or a part of a b oo k is the dorn ,inant kind of document in use. These tWD t o-.gether will be taken to contribute t o "DDcumentof Conventional Kind". The first of these types,viz bo ok , will be called Macro Document; andits tho ug ht c c ont ent will be called MacroThought. The s ec ond type of doc ument will becalled Micro Doc urnent : and its thought c c orr-tent will be called Micro Thought.

22 F'a s c irn il ie Reproduction

In recent years and particularly after tla.etwo World Wars, scarcity of older books andperiodicals still needed for current use - scar-city caused by sheer effiux of time or by wardamage - brought into vogue r ep r oduc tion ofthem by photographic, chemical and othe r so-called mechanical processes. At first, the re-production was more or less of the same sizeas the original. This type of documents is vir-tually of the same kind as the or igiria l conven-t ioria.l kind.

23 Non-Conventional in Script

A conventional document may be reprod-uced or recorded in a nonconventional script,such as braille, stenograph and cipher. Butthe medium of expression is only an articulatelanguage - either a natural one or an artificalorie . FOr pu r po s e s of documentation work, thistype also may be taken as document of the con-ventional kind.

24

24 Map

Map has been in use as a document for ac on s ide r abl e tithe. It is abnormal in size andshape. But a collection of maps constituting anatlas is often of normal size and shape. On thewhole, a map or atlas is usually admitted intothe category of doc urrrent of c orivent iorral kip ...

25 Micro-ReproductionNon -Conventional

Mechanical r ep r oduc t ion method can beused t o r epr oduc e the or ig iria l document on aconsiderably reduced s ca l e . The en or rn ou s .out-put Df the printing press of the world has begunto create an acute problem in stock-room-space. This has led to increasing resort toextremely small-scale reproduction. For ex-ample, a book of 100 pages is reproduced on a3"x5" card. If it is an opaque card, it is calleda micro card. Rider's book on it is we l l v kn own,1£ the reproduction is on transparent film, itis called a micro-film or simple a film. Filmis either in the f or rn a l orig roll called film-r ol l , or in the f or rn of a strip of about' inchesin length and called film strip. This kind ofdocument does not differ from the conventionalkind of document either in the mode of expres-sion or in the script or symbol used in record-ing. The difference is only in the size, shape,and nature of the material of emb od irn ent .Mo r eov e r , it is of recent origin. It may there-fore, be called a Non-Conventional Doc urrie nt ofthe first; kind. Miniature books of about an

inch in height have been pr oduc ed oc ca s iona llvall along to past. They are only bibliograph-ical curios. They are not figuring much in day-to-day service. Nor is the size of the scriptas small as in a rn ic r o vc a r d or a film. Wemay merely regard them as freaks within theconventional kind. The pr ovis iona l def in it ion of"DDcument" admits int o itself rn ic r o c ca r d s andmicrD-films. No amendment in definitioa iscalled for to include them. TD this cat egor y ofdocument be l ong s also the Ceiling Book. This isa b ook in film-roll served to patients in bed.They project it on to the ceiling and read itwhile in the lying posture.

An lib se

DOCUMENT ATION IN MANY LANDS 4

I 3 AUDIO VISUAL RECORD OF WORK:NON -CONVENTIONAL DOCUMENT OF

THE SECOND KIND

Any conventional document or non-conven-tional docum.ent of the first kind is essentiallydependent on phonetic symbol or script as formof recording, and language as medium for ex-pr e s s ion of thought. But recent advances intechnology have made practicable and more orless cheap, the direct recording of sound vibra-tions unmediated by script, and the kinemato-graphic r ec ording of expr e s sion of thoughtthrought the medium of gestures, and still andmoving scenes and histrionic action. Theyhave also made practicable and more or lesscheap a synchronised combination of these twokinds of records. These three variaties of re-cord are comprehended by the provisional def-inition of document. Their comprehension ismade possible by the followifl.g wide terms oc-curring in the definition of nExpressed and Em-bodied thought" - (i) expressed in language orsymbols or in any other mode; and (2) record-ed on paper or any other material - and by theomission of the term "in phonetic symbol orscript" aft·er the word "reccrc.cJ". Thus wecan speak of Audio Do c urrrent , Visual Docu-rn ent , and Aud io Visual Document. These tIb.re·ernay be taken as va r iat ie s of Non-ConventionalDocurrie nt of the Second Kind.

31. Aud io Document

At the early stages, sound recortling waslargely· used only to produce musical records.In recent y€"ars, books are being embodied asaudio-document for the benefit of the blind.Such documents are now being produced by thelibraries of many countries. Even more re-cently, audio-document is produced also forthe benefit of the illiterate; and to help the nee-literate up the path of literacy, speaking bookis being attempted, It consists of the printedbook with a companion attachment of the sound-record of the words in it. Loose mentions inhis Report to FID that since 1954 the CaliforniaMedical Association has been sponsoring axnedical abstracts service in speech recordedon magnetic tape, to obviate the use of eyes

for the purpose by busy practitioners. This ser-vice is said to cover 600 periodicals in 60-

Mar 1956 V 3 N 1

minute recordings. Document in the form ofwire record is becoming common. MahatmaGandhi's historic speeches at prayer meet-ings are now preserved as audio documents inthe National Archives of India. Copies of themcan at any time be produced in any quantity.Audio documents are now regularly servedby libraries.

32 Visual Document

Library service to illiterates has begun toinclude also visual documents such as pictures,diagrams and histograms. Even literates pre-fer the use of such visual document •• to theconventional ones r Accordingly, these havebeen all along interspersed at s ev e r a l places inconventional doc urne nt s . Ancient manuscriptscontain a feast of thern . Modern progress inthe technology and printing of illustrations hashigh lighted the visual documents of microthought forming part of books and periodicals.During World War II, the newspapers of Madrasmade a heavy call on the Madras UniversityLibrary for such documents. Due to the absenceof an analytical bibliography of microvisualdocuments, we were put to considerable diffi-culty to meet the demand. The Third and theF'ou rfh Laws of. Llbrary Science were everthreatening us of a charge of violation. Stillpictures and cinema reels are now becomingforms of visual document lent out by libraries.

33 Audio Visual Document

Since World War II, the use of educationaland documentary talking kinema reels hascome into vogue. They are naturally provingeffective in mass-communication not only toilliterates but also to literates. This varietyof non-conventional document of the secondkind was (irst lent out by special agenciesoften on rental basis. But libraries are nowbeginning to handle them in the same way asconventional documents, both for consultationwithin premises and for free loan for use out-side the library. This variety of document isparticularly effective in the instruction of tech..nicians, working largely with hand, havinglittle chance to habituate themselves to the useof conventional printed documents, and aboveall often too tired physically to sit up and pore

25

RANGANATHAN

through closely printed rriatr e r , Even in ad-vanced university classes, their use has be-come part of routine teaching technique. Theiruse saves time and pr od uc e s a more realisticimpression than the conventional teaching tech-nique of the earlier generation. I had opportun-ity to appreciate the superiority of the varietyof document in the communication of specificinformation, when I happened to visit factoriesin recent months in excursion arranged by li-brary conferences. It has an important role inproductivity drive. We should no longer regardaudio v i s ua l document to have only entertain-ment or relaxation value, even as public li-brary service was regarded during the lastcentury. It is an important tool for the enrich-rn ent of memory and the sharoening of intellect.It is now available both as macro document andas micro document

4 INSTRUMENT-RECORD OF PHEN-OMENA: NON -CONVENTIONAL

DOCUMENT OF THE THIRDKIND

The chief c ont r ibut ion of Loose's Repentto'the Brussels Congress was in its putting thelibrary profession on the alert in regard toanother kind of "audio visual material" cominginto library collection. It is a material that de-viates from the c onv ent iona l document, notmerely in the symbol or the mode of recordingand in physical embodiment of the record, butalso in what is recorded. A non-conventionaldocument of the first and the second kinds islike a conventional document in that it is a re-cord of thought created and expressed by hu-man mind. This new audio visual material isnot recording hurnan tb ought at all. It is a re-cord of phenomena, made directly, unmed-iated by the human mind and before they gett r an s f or rrre d into tho ught and even before theyget into the hurn an mind. Instrument technol-ogy, photography, radar, and various otherelements have made such instrument-recordof natural and social phenomena possible. I

41 Value of Instrument-Record

One reason for the increasing importanceof instrument-record of that kind is that itgives a permanent record on a solid material.

26

of an ephemeral or transient or momentaryphenomenon from the bondage of the subjectiveelement of the observer and of the need of thestudent of it being present and on the alert atthe time and place of the occurrence of thephenomenon. No other form of record is equallyuntainted by the idiosyncracy of the observer.No doubt the instrument itself and the pr oc c s sof recording may add taints of their own. Butthese are more rn ea s ur eab le and capable ofbeing brought under control than the subjectivetaint of the observer.

42 Extension of Primary Senses

The recording ins t r urrre nt can be attachedto other instruments and apparatus, which areextension of the primary senses. The recordmade by such an instrument brings the phen-omenon within the range of the happenings inthe distant heavenly bodies is made availablefor study. Similarly, microscopic bacteriaand ultramicroscopic virus are magnified andrecorded in a scale which is within the rangeof the eye. The seismic tremor in the unreach-able parts of the earth gets re cor de d . Invisibleobjects up in the distant regions of the sky anddown in the depths of the sea are made by theradar to leave their record ue rm an ent ly on amaterial that can be easily handled, transportedand preserved. The pursuit of astronomy, phys-ics, chemistry, biology, ecology, behaviour-ism, and sociology is facilitated by such re-cords. Micro-cinematograph produces evenmore helpful records, which make the studyof changes in the structure of materials, ontog-eny of cells ,and fa ult s in the m oving parts ofmachinery, capable of being pursued wit h pr o-.fit, at a pace which is comfortable to th~ mind.

43 Extension of theDefinition of Doc urn ent

- The kind of records mentioned above arein increasing use They should be taken into thecategory of d·.:;,:.01~•.ent , figuring in doc urn e nt a .tion work and documentation service organisedto help specialists in their work. A record ofthis kind may be called "Non-ConventionalDocument of the Third Kind-. To make thispossible, the definition of "Document- sh ouIdbe extended so as to read as follows:-

An lib sc

DOCUMENTATION IN MANY LANDS 4

( Document: -.r;ec:ord-made on more or lessflat surface or on surface admitting of beingspread flat when required, made of paper orother material, fit for easy handling, trans-port across space and preservation through

time - of thought created by mind and expressedin language or symbols or in any other mode,and/or of natural or social phenomena madedirectly by instrument without being passedthrough human mind and woven into thought cre-ated and expressed by it.

44 Exclusion of Categories

In the meetings at the Brussels Congress,devoted to non-conventional documents devotedby the term 'audio visual material', it was dif-fi c ult , as already stated, to prevent discussion'\ .rnde r irrg too wide of the mark. This is unav-oidable in a gr oup of thinking minds, unle s sthe universe of discussion is provisionally de-fined and its boundary is extended, if need be,at later stages only conscientiously and in de-fined terms. The discus sion in the Committeeon Cataloguing was prevented from being fruit-ful because of failure to define the basic termsand concepts, and even of uncritical, escapistresistance to work on them. Some of the cat-egories excluded by the above definition maybe rn ent iorie d . Radio and television was br-o ughtinto the discussion. These are no doubt meansof audio visual communication. But they arenot ~()cuments; becasue they are not recordson materials fit for handling or preservation.Statues, pieces of china, and the material e~-hibits in a museum were mentioned becausethey conve-y thought expressed in some way. Butnone of these is a document, since it is not arecord on a more less flat s'u r f'a c e . "Books inrunning brooks" can be admitted as a poetic ex-pression or as a piece of rhetoric; it implies,no doubt, symbol expressing and communicat-ing thought. But it does not answer the de fin i ;

bon of "Document", as it figures in libraryservice either to a general reader or to as pe c ia lis t ,

45 Refractory Materials

There are refractive materials in the bor-der line, baffling any definition. One type in-corpora tes flat samples of materials or

ill o e- • 956 V 3 N 1

mounted material built together in the formsof a book. If it contains no rec ord other thandescriptive labels for the samples, we may de-cline to accept it as a docllmettt. But the letter-press may be more than lables. It may giveadditional information of a historical or tech-nical nature. This letter-press area may beconsiderable. 'I'h en , it is easy to accept it asa document. But, if the letter-press area isslight or small, the decision is difficult. TheMadras University Library was hard put to de-cide this issue, when it collected a set of vol-umes discarded by the Connemera Pub l ic Li-brary about 25 years ago. It was one of 50 or60 sets of volumes on textiles produced by theEast India Company to help the Lancashire wea-vers to copy thepattern and texture of cloth pro-duced in India. The small amount of Iett e r >.

pres s gave valuable historical information aboutthe high quality of Dacca muslin produced inPre-British India but suppressed and evenwiped out both by governmental action and tar-iff policy. If the textiles were illustrated bypictures, there would have been no hesitation indeclaring the set as a docurn ent . But the setconsisted mostly of actual samples of clothmounted on paper, with descriptive and histor-ical information amounting to more than a merelabel. There will arise many other kinds ofrefractive cases exceeding the capacity of anytight definition and needing ad hoc decision.

5 CLASSIFICA TION

We shall next examine the special prob-lems in classification peculiar to differentkinds of document. From the present point ofview, clas sification is the designing of a sys-tern of ordinal numbers, such that each docu-ment can be represented by a unique ordinalnumber with the aid of which documents can bearranged in a preferred, more or less helpful,sequence and the restoration on the sequencecan be mechanised without the need to examineeach document in detail. The unique ordinalnumber representing a document is its CallNumber. It consists of three parts - class num-ber, document number, and collection number.

Class Number represents the thought-con-tent of the document - its soul, so to speak itis desirable that it should be co c ext en s iv e withthe thought-content, so that no two related sub-jects differini essentially in their extension

27

RANGANATHAN

get the same class number; it is also desirablethat the class number should be expressive ofall the relevant characteristics of the subject inthe true measure of their exact incidence.

The function of Document Number is to in-dividualise the several documents with thesame class number - i. e. embodying and ex-pressing more or less similar thought-content;leaving out for the moment complications suchas those of multi-volumed or dependent docu-ments, a document number consists of threefacets. La ngu.age facet, Form facet, and Yearor Author facets. If the medium is a naturallanguage, its number forms the first facetand the literary form of exposition forms thesecond facet. For economy, the language facetand the form facet are by convention omitted ifthe language is the favoured language of the li-brary and the form of exposition is prose. Whenthe medium is not language, the form facetrepresents the medium of expression, such aspicture, graphs, diagram, map etc.

The Collection Number represents the phys-ical form of embodiment, in the case of allkinds of non-conventional documents. Theirabnormal I?hysical form prevents their beinghoused and arranged as a single collectionalong with books. Each variety of document hasto be housed and arranged as a separate collec-tion in receptacles peculiar to each variety.Thus all varieties of documents having the sameclass number and the first two of the facetsrnent iorie d for document number will not befound in the same collection. The function ofthe Collection Number is to indicate the collec-tion in which the document is located.

51 Class Number

Much work has been done on class number.Most schemes of classification provide classnumbers adequately for the needs of macrodocuments. But few are now capable of doing sofor micro documents; and yet the emphasis ofdocumentation is on micro documents. Existingschemes are too superficial for this purpose.They demand Depth Clas sification, capable ofhandling subjects with many facets. UDC wasthe first scheme to attempt it. In some mea-sure, it provided for analysis in the idea planeand synthesis' in the notational plane. It wasthus conceived more or less as an analytico-synthetic scheme. But its ad opt ion of the rigid,

28

enumerative DC as core is standing in the wayof achieving the rrra xr rrrurn advantages of an an-alytico-synthetic scheme. CC based itself,from the very start, on facet analysis. It istherefore more versatile in facing the needs ofthe depth classification. The postulates of F'iveFundamental Categories, Rounds. Levels aluongfacets, and zones in arrays are easily im .plemented in CC. This adds to its versatility.But as depth increases, the difficulties inc re a s ein r ega rd to rounds and levels. The !It·u:;,.;.':!,,Co ngr e s s showed g r e at s en s iti ve ne s s to thebedifficulties. It sought to s t re ugt.he n th," hdl)(j" o t

the FID/CA, the Committee on Gelleralflieoqof Classification. The p r opo s ed Int e r na t ion a )Seminal' and Fellowship on the subject will i).,able to overcome the difficulties by w orl d ..w id e-team work, or at any rate set t he pa c e Io r It.

The well-financed work in progl"E;SS on rapidrn e chan ic a l selectors is causing confusion andinducing the complascence of e s c a pis rn in rt "'!':'tion of d oc urn ent a li s t s . It should be r ern erob er edthat the machine can rn a ke selection ra p id ,only in the rn ea s ure in which c Las s if ic a t io. h..•"fulfilled its pa rr in facet-anal y s i s in ti.e e i uri n .

e r at ion of sharp enough is ol a t e s in t l••. s ch enu!.for each facet, and in the methodology to diUI.

yse a doc urn en t i.nto its facets a.nd to fi:.; Ib,·isolate nurnber in each of th« facet.s. To s om eextent. the rria chi ne may help (1:; to [,ypd;;-; ti·,~

exact determination of the S€:ql)"'ll( ti ()f ;:.'. "L;;

beyond a certain depth, But a:: th., O![\(',' ',,,,,:';;

of c La s s if ic at icn should be com pl e t c-c! ,-lfi,-,,'nll\·before t.he isolate nurnb ors ('ill' be: ((".J""I;"'.',:

into the binary code needed f or the' '0'" ltj"t' ludo its job rapidly. Classlficaliol'l C,Uille':! ti'''''t'fore rest on its oars, if t h e- J ih r ar v p r otc s s i r.»is to play its part in do curn e nta t iou .'ne: fulfilits role in the te arn work ol hurna ui t v lu :,,<1' ",re s ea r ch , inc r ea se pr od uc U •.,n, i \1',}., l' O'! t' <11

t r ibut ion of wealth. c orn ru od it ie s . .1IH! s er vi ,'''.help establishing international pe ac e and con-tribute to wo r Idvwe l.far e .

52 Documentation Num be r

Sufficient a tt en t ion has not been pai d byUDC to the Fi"J'rt F.!.cet uf Documentation Nun,-ber. It mixes up s o rri e of the isolat.es of thisfacet and the isolates of collection number andsome others in one and the s arne schedule. CCis the only scheme providing a. s epar at e sched-ule for the f or m facet of do c urne nt at ion num be r.in a conscious way. But its schedule needs (;011-

An lib sc

DOCUMENTATION IN MANY LANDS 4

siderable enrichment to deal with all the all thevarieties of document with non-linguistic mediafor expression. Hardly anything has been donein regard to the symbols of expression occurringor likely to occur in non-conventional documentsof the third kind. The discussion on Loose'sReport at the Brussels Congress high-lightedthis lacuna. However, it is doubtful if all theisolates suggested by him would be valid - say,three-dimensional representation, objects~specimens - occurring on page 201 of volume 1of the International Congress of Libraries andDoc um ent al ist s , Brussels, 1955. They may beneeded in arranging exhibits in a museum, butnot in documentation.

53 Collection Number

No scheme has provided schedule for col-.c t ion number. Ranganathan's Library admin-

istration (1935) and Library Ma_nuai:-"C{9-~'-1)in-dicate or demonstrate their use and the con-struction in a feeble way. But it 1S far fromadequate. The construction of a satisfactoryschedule, satisfying the canons of classifica-tions is not diff icult , It must be done. This isa small project, which FID may very well takeup and complete in a short time, as it is con-c er ned only with the physique of a document.It can even be done by any single national mem-ber of FID The technical sub committee onc la s s if icat ion , appointed as a Standing Com-mittee of the Insdoc in India can ea s ily take upthis work and complete it soon.

6 CATALOGUING

Part 0 of kanganathan's"Theory of librarycatalogue" (1938) and of his "Library cat a.logue ,Fundamentals and procedure" (1949) has madea s y s t ern aric study of the possible sections inthe main entry of a conventional document. Ithas shown that all the varieties of even a con-ventional document do not call for equal detailsof information to be given in the main entry.The minimum information needed in any docu-mentation list consists of what is prescribedfor the Leading Section (call number), Heading(Author statement or its equivalent), Title Sec-tion (statement of title, collaborators and edi-bon), and Note (statement of series of relatedbooks). This minirnum is sufficient in the en.

Mar 1956 V 3 N 1

try 111 a library catalogue, pertaining to a mod-ern printed book (printed after 1550 in Europeor in corresponding later periods elsewhere),without any unusual physical peculiarity. Butthis is not sufficient even for such an I.lltra-conventional modern document in a NationalBibliography or trade-list. There is need toadd another section giving format, collectionand imprint. Again even in a library catalogue,the main entry of an incunabulum, a map, amusical score, a book transliterating the wordsof a language in a foreign script or in short handetc. and a book of abnormal size, will have togive additional information. Elaborate catal-oguing rules for the additional sections for in-cunabalum, map, and music are already codedby the library of Congress along rrioder n lines inits "Rules for descriptive cataloguing"in theLibrary of Congress (adopted by the ArnericanLibrary As s oc iat i on ) 1949. An additional notewill be necessary to indicate transliteration ina foreign script. Ra nganat ha nt s "Classified

catalogue code" prescribed indication of ab-normal s i ze by the underlining, overlining etcof document nurnber. A micro document w il lneed a separate section showing its location inits hosi document. The ISO/TC46 is establish-ing some standard rules on this matter. Thedifferent kinds of non-conventional documentneed special rules prescribing standards ofdescription to be put in extra sections in themain entry.

61 Nen-ConventionalDocument of First Kind

The main entry of a micro copy of a conven-tional document should reproduce all the foursections of the main entry of the original. Butthis is not sufficient. There should be an addi-tional section describing the physique of the mi-cro copy. This section may have to mention thereduction scale, the number of micro cards orf ilrn strips or the length of the film roll intowhich the original document extends, and per-haps the rr,agnifying power and other qualitiesof the reading apparatus needed. The standardtechnical terms and a code of rules for formu-Iat inv t.h;" nf.'W s ect ion are to he e st ab l ishedThe Library of Cong r e e s has gone forward inthis work. The tirne will soon come to have aninternational standard.

29

RANGANATHAN

62 Non-ConventionalDocument of Se conu Kine!

Audio-visual materials form an altogethernew kind of document. Except in the case of a"Speaking book" made of a sound record of adocument of the conventional kind, this -zLas s ofdocument has no filiation to the current cata-logue codes. Pernaps, we may follow their an-alogy. The leading section of the main entryshould consist of the call number. The headingmay have to consist of the name of the "Speaker"in the case of a sound record. It may have to bethe name of the author of the theme in the caseof a cinema film. The title section in the mainentry of the latter may have to include in thecollaborator statement, the names of new kindsof collaborators such as kinematographer,sound-recorder, director of music, generaldirector and the various art-specialists. Thetitle-statement itself will have to follow thename given to the film by the maker or theauthor of it. In the place of the section givingformat, collection and imprint, there shouldbe a section giving perhaps the width of the reel,the length of the reel in feet, the speed to beused in unwinding, the duration of show, thecolour factor, the quality of having two dimen-sional effect or three dimensional effect, thesound factor, and relation to any published bookif any. A full fledged cataloguing code coveringall these and other relevant details is yet to bedrafted. It will be an advanta ge , if ISO/ TC 46can take the initiative to prevent the avoidabledifficulties experienced in r el at ion to books, onaccount of the casual and irrational way in wl;lichthe make up of the title page had been allowed toevolve. It is only now after four centuries ofdrifting that India's proposal contained in chap-ter 7 of Ranganathan's "Heading and canons"(1955) and being formulated as a draft standardby the Indian Standards Institution has begun toreceive attention in the form of a resolutionpassed by the Brussels Congress of Septemberlast asking for a standard to be established forthe preliminary pages of a book, so as to enablea catalogue code to anchor itself on the title-page and its overflow into its back and later-pages if necessary ann to a s s urn e the unres-t r ict ed play and service of the Canon of Ascer-tainability formulated in Section 331 of the"Heading and canons". ISO/TC 46 may evennow promote a standard for the audio-visual

30

materials of any variety carrying within itselfsome section corresponding to the title-pageand the other preliminary pages of a book,giving all the data needed for descriptive cat-aloguing. Such a prompt action at the interna-tional level will eliminate wastage of thought-energy in beating about the bush both in f r a rr ;ing catalogue codes and in cataloguing audi o ,

vis ua l mate rial s.

63 Non-conventionalDocument of Third Kina

An instrument-record, unrne diat ed byhuman rnirid , is seldom an independent docu-ment, even as the manuscript of type-script ofa book is seldom circulated as part of librarymaterial. But copies of it are oft en made asmicro documents forming part of a macro doc-ument. By its very nature, it embodies onlymicro experience of long extension. But it isof vital importance in the creation of newthought. The instrument record of the total s c ,lar eclipse of the first decade of the presentcentury has made history in physics. The elec-tron-microscope record of virus has narrowedthe gulf between the most complicated mole-cule of protoplasm and the living of organismof the most pr irn it iv e kind known so far. Everysubject is progressmg by leaps and bounds withthe aid of such auto-records - astrophysics,organic chemistry, t echn ol ogy , medicine,psychology and sociology. It is, therefore, animperative duty of the library profession tomake documentation lists of sucn aut o c r ec or ds .It rnay be difficult to get an author heading forsuch a document. Nor w ill it easily admit of acrisp -title" fit to be used as headii.g for mainentrv. Perhaps, the best course will be tornake the subject entry the rria in entry evenif the rules for a dic t iona r y catalogue arefollowed. For this we have precedence in Ru ie121 of Cutter's "Rules for a dict ioaa r y cata-logue". In a classified catalogue and in a dic-tionary catalogue making the subject entry themain entry, an improvised title will have to beus ed in most case. T'b e r e is therefore needto frame special rules for improvising the bodyof the entry for an auto-record.

64 Analytical Entry

In the case of an important a ut o v r ecor d ,there may be simultaneous demand for copi e s

An lib fie

,DOC UMENT ATION IN MANY LANDS •

from several patrons of one and the same li-brary. This will oe specially so in a college oruniveraity library. when the students of a classare turned on them. This phenomenon is nothowever new. In the Delhi Un iv e r sity Libraryfor example. at a t im e, when the Dean of theFaculty of Law is particular that studentsshould individually look up reported case. sev-eral students would compete to get priority.This pressure could be met to SOl'T'P. extent bymaking analytical entries for a reported ca sefrom eve ry pos s ibl e pub licat ion containing t hereport. In a similar way. the location of anauto-record of topical interest in as many pub-lications as possible - books as well as peri-odicals - should be indicated by analyticalentries.

65 International Se r vice

But such an intensive anaiytical documenta-tion by each libr a rv w il l entail rriuc h cost. P.more economical method will be to get such adocumentation list to be produced by a centraldoc urn ent at ion agency of regional, national orinternational status. For current or nascentauto-records, the time-lag will make interna-tional a.;;ency ineffective. A national or a re-gional agency may be preferable. But, in thecase of a retrospective bibhography c f 3UtO'r e c or d s , an international agency will be moreeconomical and practicabie.

66 Illustration dra wn by Hand

Before auto -records got es t abli shed as re-sult of recent advances in the t echn o t ogy con-c e r ned the only recourse for impersonals our c e rnat e r i a l s equivalent to a uto v r e c or d swas \:0 rn a.k,e a faithful drawing of what was ob-s e r v ed , Indeed a good s c ient is t - particularly;1 biologist - was ort e n an expert in graphic art.Ev en n ow , a student of any biological sciencehas to be ",vod at drawing. Such drawings ofp:-e-;o.Lto-record days also stand in need of re-t r ospe c t iv c bibliography. m this connection, Ir e rn e rnba r an experience of 1925. I went tovisit th e newly erected libr ar v building of thet!wr'. \;nivcr~.ity College at Reading. As the li-brarian Wid tdking me round, an elderly pr ot .e s s or j oinec us. He asked my opinion about thedesi.gn of the building. Being an impetuous youth.

Mar 1956 V 3 N 1

I condemned it without reserve. The librariantold me later that that P'r ofe s s or was himselfresponsible for that design. This made merepentent. When I went to have lunch with themembers of the Faculty, I apologised to theprofessor for my blunt statement. But the prof-essor was a true scientist. He invited me tohis house to know about the defects in the build-ing. This gave me a unique experience in re-gard to the arduous way in which a p r ofe s s orin a p r cg r e s s iv e country wor ked . The profes-sor - I think Cole was his name - was engagedin writing a history of anatomy. He had made afairly exhaustive collection of printed and man-uscript books on anatomy. He had analysedeach of these books and periodicals and pre-pared an exhaustive micro documentation listin 5" x 3" cards. This incl'uded an exhaustivebibliography of all the anatomical drawings.The professor told me that a comparison of thedrawings of the horae, for example, clearlyshowed that they were all copies of a singleoriginal. He said that the location of so manycopies in his c ol le c t ion made it easy to makeall his students study them simultaneously.

7 REFERENCE SERVICEAND CIRCULA TlON

Open access is obviously impossible in thecase of all the three kinds of non c conv ent iona ldocuments. It cannot serve much purpose. asone cannot browse into their contents as in thecase of a conventional book. Therefore. refer-ence service cannot be done with the documentsconcerned spread open before the reader. Theslow and systematic approximation of the rightdocument cannot be made as in the case of con-ventional books. This will put extra strain onthe r ef e r enc e librarian. He should have a moreintimate knowledge of the contents of a non-con-ventional document than of a conventional one.

Circulation work also calls for extra a ct ion ,A.non-conventional document cannot be lentout in a bare state. It is necessary to put it ina special receptacle and then hand it over. In-spite of providing such a special receptacle.the libraries find that gramaphone recordscome back, ior example, with harmful scratch-es. In fact, the circulation staff should giveapecial instructions to borrowers about theha rid l inq of such a document and the kind of ap-paratus that shoul d be employed in us ing it. It

31

RANGANATHAN

i.s indeed desirable that a document of that kindshould have a set of printed or written instruc-tions attached to it. when it is lent out in cir-culation or fo r consultation within the premises.

8 MAINTENANCE

Special containers are nec e s sa r y to main-tain the non c c onv ent icria l documents of differ-ent kinds. This is but natural. In the days ofthe clay tablets of Assyria and the scrolls oflater days, the urn or a cylindrical box wasneeded. In the case of oversized manuscriptsof the mediaeval age, too heavy to be carriedabout, chaining to the shelves was necessary.Indeed the size and. form of the document deter-mines the receptacle needed. The task of pro-tection from injury also varies with the mater-

ial base, its strength, durability and frequencyof use. For example, I saw in Hyde r aba d thatthe l.ess frequently used manuscripts are pro-tected from insects bv the insertion of a snake-skin inside the book and being wrapped up in asilk-cloth. A modern book is protected from in-sects by allowing the readers to have openaccess. No doubt open a cc e s s causes morewear and tear and shortens the life of a book.But it if' known that the thought-content of anordinary rn ode r n book is outmoded by the t irn eit gets worn out by legitimate use. It is tooearly to know, all the ills to which the physiqueof non-conventional documents are prone and todevise satisfactory rn e t ho ds for their mainten-ance. We do not yet know the number of yearswithin which they may have to be discarded.Future alone will make us wise in these mat-ters

32 An lib se