Introduction

Much of our professional discourse is based around quests for absolutes: how to manage e-resources, be the best teacher, win resources, evaluate our impact, develop or create peerless metadata and so on. The basis for many of our services is the operation of restrictions, in the form of loan entitlements, borrowing periods, limitations on access based on where you work and what licence agreements specify. We order and categorize our collections and services. We are bound by rules and regulations – both a professional strength and a weakness. Rules give us clarity and working definitions, but they can also serve to limit our f lexibility and provide a refuge for a lack of innovation and creativity.

Yet when it comes to managing, developing and delivering services, there are so many variables depending on our organizations, resources and culture that we do not think it is appropriate to specify to an exact degree what you should do. Instead, this final chapter consolidates the preceding chapters into ten key principles for the provision of effective library services for research.

Laws, values and principles

There are other, much nobler antecedents to our principles. S. R. Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science (Ranganathan, 1931) offer fundamental guidance on our practice. They are:

• 1 Books are for use.

• 2 Every person his or her book.

• 3 Every book its reader.

• 4 Save the time of the reader.

• 5 The library is a growing organism.

The laws can be applied to our current environment quite easily. We recognize that information resources must be used to have value. We also acknowledge that individuals, especially researchers, have specific information needs. It is also established that our collections, both print and physical, must be aligned to the needs of our users and that we must reduce barriers to accessing our collections.