The Five Laws of Library Science

Dr. S. R. Rangangthan (1892to1972)

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 ot touched and made significant contributions to it. Hes Five Laws of Library Science laid the foundatins of library and information servicce; and his Prolegomena to Library Classification to Knowledge oranization (Subject structuring, classification and indexing); Dr. Ranganathan received many honours ---the National Research Professorship in Library Science in March 1965 conferred by the Goverment of India.: D. Litt ( Honoris causa) by the Delhi U*niversity in 1948 Doctorate in Library Scince 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 pratice. Born in August 1892, Dr. Ranganathan earned his M A in Mathematics from the Madras. He started as a lecturer in mathematics and Physics in some of the constituent colleges of the 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 ceaelessly to make that Library a model academic library in 1945 he was invited tothe positions of Honorary Professor of Library Science by the Banaras 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 theBureau of India 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 27 september 1972, leaving indelible marks in most facets of library and information science.