NATIONAL LIBRARIAN’S DAY

 

 

Dr.S.R.Ranganathan , Father of Indian library Science

August 12th is being celebrated as National Librarian’s Day in India, in remembrance of national professor of library science, Dr S R Ranganathan (1892-1972), who had spearheaded library development in India

Dr. Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan was born on August 9, 1892 Shiyali, Madras and died on September 27, 1972 in Bangalore. He earned an MA in Mathematics, and taught at Madras University. In 1924 he was appointed as the librarian of Madras University, a post he held for twenty years.

He was educated at the Hindu High School in Shiyali, at Madras Christian College (where he took B.A. and M.A. degrees in mathematics in 1913 and 1916), and at Teachers College, Saidapet.

•   In 1917 he joined the faculty of Government College, Mangalore.

•  From 1920 to 1923 he subsequently taught at Government College, Coimbatore, and at Presidency College, University of Madras, in 1921-1923

•  In 1924 he was appointed first librarian of the University of Madras, and in order to fit himself for the post he traveled to England to study at University College, London.

•  From 1925 to 1944 he took up the job at Madras in earnest in 1925 and held it until 1944.

•   From 1945 to 1954 he served as librarian and as professor of library science at Hindu University in Varanasi (Banaras), and from 1947 to 1954 he taught at the University of Delhi.

•  From 1954 to 1957 he was engaged in research and writing in Zürich.

•  He returned to India in the latter year and served as visiting professor at Vikram University, Ujjain, until 1959.
• His most notable contributions to the field were his five laws of library science and the development of the first major faceted classification system, the colon classification.
•   In 1962 he founded and became head of the Documentation Research and Training Centre in Bangalore, with which he remained associated for the rest of his life, and in 1965 he was honoured by the Indian government with the title of national research professor in library science.
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• He was also awarded ‘Padmashri’ in 1957 for his invaluable contributions to Library Science.  He is known as ‘Father of Indian Library Science’ for his immense unparalleled contributions to field.

Dr. S R Ranganathan is considered to be the father, the doyen, messiah of library and information profession in India.