Documents Selection Principles
Edited By Asheesh Kamal
LIS Cafe Website, 2024

Selection principles have been evolved which serve as guides for selecting documents for library. The followings are some well known principles:

Drury’s Principles: Drury described his principles in his book, Book Selection, published by ALA in 1930. It is a list of 21 points. The gist of his principles is that the aim of selection should be “to provide the right book to the right reader at the right time”.

Dewey’s Principles: Melvil Dewey suggested that in selecting document the librarian should see that the document is “the best reading for the largest number at the least cost”.

Ranganathan’s Principles: According to Dr. S.R. Ranganathan, documents fall under three categories: documents which are of basic or of primary interest to the users; documents which may be required, at one time or other, to supplement the basic documents, and documents which are of no relevance to

the primary area of work.

Reference:-

IGNOU Study Materials