Logo

Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan is world-renowned in the field of library and information science. There is hardly any aspect of library science that he has not touched and made significant contributions to it. His Five Laws of Library Science laid the foundations of library and information service; and his Prolegomena to Library Classification, Colon Classification along with Chain Procedure are seminal contributions to knowledge organization (subject structuring, classification and indexing). Dr. Ranganathan received many honours – the Nationl Research Professorship in Library Science in March 1965 conferred by the Government of India- D.Litt. (Honoris Causa) by the Delhi University in 1948, Doctorate in Library Science by the University of Pittsburgh in 1964, Padma Shri in 1956, and the MARGARET Mann award in 1971 by the American Library Association for his contribution to Cataloguing theory and practice. Born in August 1892, Dr. Ranganathan earned his M.A. in Mathematics from Madras. He started as a lecturer in mathematics and physics in some of the constituent colleges of Madras University. Chance events led him to accept the Madras University Librarian's post in 1924. After a year's study at the School of Librarianship and Archives in London, he returned to the Madras University Library and for the next 20 years, worked ceaselessly to make that library a model academic library. In 1945 he was invited to the positions of Honorary Professor of Library Science by the Benares Hindu University (1944-47), then Delhi University (1947-56) and later the Documentation Research and Training Centre (DRTC) of the Indian Statistical Institute at Bangalore (1962-1972). Earlier he was associated with the establishment of such information institutions as INSDOC(CSIR), and Documentation Sectional Committee of the Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi. He founded the Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science in 1963, with the objective of promoting research in library science and dissemination of the research results. He wrote more than 2000 research papers, about 60 books and founded and edited five periodical publications during his life-time. Ranganathan passed away on 27th September 1972, leaving indelible marks in most facets of library and information science