Protect free access to knowledge. Honor the past and create the future. The new laws of library science are a framework within which libraries can survive and progress. They provide a tool enabling us to think about libraries and technology clearly and rationally. The dominant ethic of librarianship is service.
Libraries exist to serve the individual, community, and society as a whole.
The word service connotes individual acts of help as well as the furtherance of the higher aspirations of humankind. Beyond that, service in librarianship implies an attention to quality, a desire to live up to and to surpass the expectations of library users. This law reminds us why we exist and urges us to consider any program or innovation in the light of service. The urge to serve is at the root of successful careers in librarianship and its psychic rewards are many. Our true mission is both to the individual seeker of truth and to the wider goals and aspirations of the culture.