Maharashtra HSC Library & Information Science flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Five Laws of Library Science

Five principles stated by S. R. Ranganathan in 1931: books are for use, every reader their book, every book its reader, save the reader's time, and the library is a growing organism.

DIKW hierarchy

A model arranging data as raw symbols, information as processed data with meaning, knowledge as integrated information, and wisdom as applied judgement; used to explain the library's role in knowledge transfer.

Bradford's law

A bibliometric law stating that articles on a subject are scattered across journals in decreasing productivity zones, so a small core of journals carries most relevant literature.

Asa Don Dickinson

American librarian who started the first formal library science course in India at Punjab University, Lahore, in 1915, marking the beginning of professional LIS education in the country.

DRTC

Documentation Research and Training Centre, established in 1962 in Bangalore by S. R. Ranganathan, offering advanced documentation education and research in India.

National Library of India

Located in Kolkata, it descends from the Imperial Library of 1903 and became the National Library in 1948; it receives legal deposit copies and produces the national bibliography.

UNESCO Public Library Manifesto

A statement first issued in 1949 and revised in 1994 and 2022, declaring the public library a local gateway to knowledge, free and open to all members of the community.

INFLIBNET

An autonomous inter-university centre of the UGC established in 1991 at Gandhinagar, Gujarat, providing library automation software such as SOUL and nationwide e-resource access programmes.

Special library

A library attached to a parent organization such as a company, research institute or government body, focused on the organization's mission and strong in current awareness, reports, patents and standards.

Colon Classification

A faceted classification scheme published by S. R. Ranganathan in 1933 that builds class numbers from Personality, Matter, Energy, Space and Time facets joined by connecting symbols.

PMEST

Ranganathan's five fundamental categories: Personality, Matter, Energy, Space and Time; their sequence determines the facet formula used to construct Colon Classification numbers.

FRBR

A conceptual model defining four bibliographic entities, Work, Expression, Manifestation and Item, and the user tasks of finding, identifying, selecting and obtaining resources; it underpins RDA.

MARC 21

A machine-readable cataloguing format maintained by the Library of Congress that encodes bibliographic records in tagged fields, enabling exchange of catalogue data between library systems.

Reference interview

A structured conversation in which the librarian uses open questions and paraphrasing to clarify the user's real information need before selecting and searching appropriate reference sources.

Selective Dissemination of Information

An SDI service matches stored user interest profiles against newly acquired or published documents and delivers only the relevant items to each individual user, unlike broad current awareness announcements.

National bibliography

A systematically compiled list of publications produced in a country, usually based on legal deposit copies received by the national library, serving as a record of national publishing output.

Koha

An open-source, web-based integrated library system with modules for acquisition, cataloguing, circulation, serials and OPAC, widely adopted because it is customizable and cost-effective.

Dublin Core

A simple metadata element set of fifteen core elements, including title, creator, subject and date, used to describe digital resources for discovery and interoperability across repositories.

OAI-PMH

The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, which lets service providers collect metadata records from repositories so that distributed digital collections can be searched together.

POSDCORB

Luther Gulick's classical management acronym for Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting and Budgeting, commonly used to describe library administration functions.

Zero-based budgeting

A budgeting method in which every expenditure must be justified from a zero base each year rather than carried forward from the previous budget, giving tight control at the cost of much staff effort.

Stock verification

The periodic checking of a library's physical collection against accession records or the shelf list, using registers, shelf lists or RFID, to detect losses and reconcile holdings.

Weeding

The planned removal of obsolete, damaged, little-used or duplicate stock from a collection, judged by currency, use, condition and duplication criteria, to maintain quality and free space.

Ranganathan's staff formula

A classical Indian staffing model estimating the number of professional staff needed from collection size, number of users, and the number of service points and sections operated.

Information literacy

The ability to recognise an information need and to locate, evaluate, use and communicate information ethically and legally; defined in frameworks from ACRL and UNESCO.

Kuhlthau's information search process

A six-stage model of user searching: initiation, selection, exploration, formulation, collection and presentation, describing affective and cognitive changes as understanding develops.

Pathfinder

A concise subject guide, in print or online, that points users to key reference sources, databases, catalogues and search tips on a topic, serving as a self-help information literacy tool.

IFLA Code of Ethics

Adopted in 2012, it states professional principles for librarians covering access to information, responsibility to users, privacy, intellectual property, professional neutrality and avoidance of censorship.

Delivery of Books Act 1954

An Indian law, amended in 1956, requiring publishers to deposit copies of their publications with the National Library, Kolkata, and other designated libraries, supporting legal deposit.

Maharashtra Public Libraries Act 1967

State legislation providing for a public library system in Maharashtra, financed through a library cess and administered by a state library authority and local library authorities.

ILA

The Indian Library Association, founded in 1933, is a national professional body that promotes library development, publishes literature, and organises conferences and professional activities in India.

Fair dealing

A limited exception under the Indian Copyright Act 1957, as amended in 2012, permitting use of copyrighted works for research, private study, criticism or review without the owner's permission.