Dr. S R Ranganathan
Dr.
Shiyali Ramamrita
Ranganathan, Father of
Library and Information Science in India
was born on August 9,1892
at Shiyali in Tamilnandu. Ranganathan 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, Karnataka. Then he was a teacher at Government
College Coimbatore and at Presidency College, University of Madras.
In 1924 he was appointed first librarian of the University of Madras.
In the same year he
departed to London and joined University College London. There he met
W C B Sayers, Chief Librarian of Croydon Public Library and a
Lecturer in University School of Librarianship. Under his Guidance
Dr. Rangananthan visited many libraries in London. He came back to
India in 1925 and took the charge of librarian at Madras University.
He continued in that post till 1944. For next three years he served
as librarian and as professor of Library Science at Bananras Hindu
University. During 1947 to 1954 he taught at University of Delhi.
During 1954 to1957 he was engaged in research and writing in Zürich.
He returned to India and became visiting Professor at Vikram
University, Ujjain till 1959.In 1957 he was honoured with Padma
Shri by the Government of India for his contribution in library
spectrum. In
1962 he founded DRTC in Bangalore. In 1962 he was honoured by the
Indian government with the title of national research professor in
library science.
Contributions of Dr.
S R Ranganathan
The main
contributions of Dr Rangananthan is Colon Classification, Classified
Catalogue Code and Chain Indexing. His works are listing below;
Five Laws of Library
Science-1931
Colon
Classification-
1933
Classified Catalogue Code-
1934Prolegomena to Library Classification-1937
Theory of the Library Catalogue-1938
Elements of Library Classification-1945
Classification and International Documentation-1948
Classification and Communication -1951
Headings and Canons-1955
Reference: Encyclopedia Britannica
Wikipedia
Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Vol.25.
Melvil Dewey
Melvil
Dewey was born on
December 10, 1851 in New
York State, in USA. He is the pioneer in library movement in USA and
known as Father of modern Librarianship. In 1876 he devised Dewey
Decimal Classification, the most popular library classification in
the world. In the same year he helped to start American Library
Association (ALA) the first library association in the world and
largest ever. He became the first secretary of ALA and then president
for two terms. He also co-founded and edited Library
Journal it
was the first journal in LIS.
Dewey promoted library standards and formed a company to sell library
supplies, which eventually became the Library Bureau company of
today. He was appointed as the librarian of Columbia College in New
York City in 1883 and founded the world's first library school there
in 1887. In 1889, he became director of the New York State Library in
Albany. He died at age 80 on December
26, 1931. Image courtesy: Wikipedia
University of Illinois
Henri La Fontaine
Henri La Fontaine was
born in Brussels on 22 April 1854.He studied law at the Free
University of Brussels and joined the bar in 1877. In 1893, he
became professor of international law at the Free University of
Brussels and two years later was elected to the Belgian Senate as a
member of the Socialist Party.He served as president of the
International Peace Bureau from 1907 until his death. In 1913 he was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He is the co-founder of Institute
International de Bibliographie (which later became the International
Federation for Information and Documentation, FID) along with Paul
Otlet. It was in this role that he and Otlet attended the World
Congress of Universal Documentation in 1937. He died on 14 May 1943
in Brussels. 
