National Librarian's Day
12 August 1892 – 27 September 1972
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan was a librarian and mathematician from India. 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. He is considered to be the father of library science, documentation, and information science in India and is widely known throughout the rest of the world for his fundamental thinking in the field. His birthday is observed every year as the National Librarian Day in India
Mathematician and librarian par-excellence, Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan or S.R. Ranganathan passed away on this day, September 27, in the year 1972.
Listed below are some facts on the S.R. Ranganathan that you must know:
- He was born on August 9, 1982, in present-day Tamil Nadu.
- India celebrates August 12 as Librarians Day in his honour.
- His most notable contributions to the field are his five laws of library science.
- His Colon Classification (1933) introduced a system that is widely used in research libraries around the world.
- In 1924 he was appointed the first librarian of the University of Madras, and in order to fit himself for the post, he travelled to England to study at University College, London.
- In 1957 he was elected an honorary member of the International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID) and was made a vice-president for the life of the Library Association of Great Britain.
- In 1962, he founded and became head of the Documentation Research and Training Centre in Bangalore.
- He also drafted plans for a national and several state library systems.
- Prior to his occupation as Librarian, he was a teacher of Physics and Mathematics
- In the year 1965, the Indian government honoured him with the title of national research professor in library science.
- The government of India conferred on him Padma Shree, the country's fourth-highest civilian honour, in 1957. FIVE LAWS OF LIBRARY SCIENCE
