Reinterpreting Ranganathan’s Five Laws in the AI era: national libraries as intelligent knowledge infrastructures

Purpose This study reinterprets S. R. Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science within contemporary artificial intelligence (AI)-driven library environments and explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping the philosophical, ethical, and institutional foundations of libraries. The study further examines how national libraries may increasingly function as human-centered public knowledge infrastructures within emerging AI-mediated information societies. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a conceptual and interpretive approach combining theoretical analysis, critical literature review, and institutionally situated discussion. Drawing upon scholarship concerning library philosophy, artificial intelligence, human-centered AI, semantic knowledge systems, and AI governance, the study develops a conceptual framework for interpreting AI-driven transformation through the philosophical lens of Ranganathan’s Five Laws. The National Library of Korea is discussed as an illustrative institutional context through which contemporary AI-related developments in national libraries may be interpreted. Findings The analysis suggests that artificial intelligence significantly expands and recontextualizes the philosophical assumptions embedded within Ranganathan’s Five Laws. AI-driven library environments increasingly transform traditional understandings of accessibility, discoverability, personalization, efficiency, and institutional growth through semantic retrieval systems, conversational AI, intelligent metadata infrastructures, and multimodal knowledge services. At the same time, AI-mediated library transformation introduces important ethical and institutional tensions involving algorithmic bias, misinformation, privacy, transparency, intellectual freedom, and public trust. The study argues that the continuing relevance of Ranganathan’s philosophy lies in its adaptability as a human-centered normative framework for guiding libraries within intelligent information societies. Originality/value This study contributes to contemporary library and information science scholarship by conceptually connecting classical library philosophy with emerging discussions concerning human-centered AI, trustworthy knowledge ecosystems, AI governance, and the evolving role of national libraries. While recent work has also explicitly connected Ranganathan’s Five Laws with artificial intelligence (Kalbande, 2025), this study differentiates its contribution by examining national libraries as public knowledge infrastructures and by linking each law to documented institutional illustrations and cross-cutting ethical conditions. The study therefore frames AI-driven library transformation as a broader philosophical and institutional shift affecting the public role of national libraries.