Celebration of the 125^th birth year of

Padmashree Prof. (Dr.) Siyali Ramamrita Ranganathan

Happy Librarian’s Day

12th August 2017 is special for Indian library and information science professionals.  It is the 125th birth anniversary (1892-2017) of the great soul of India,

Padmashree Prof. (Dr.) Siyali Ramamrita Ranganathan (Father of Library Science).

We the team of LIS Portal has taken an initiative to celebrate this birthday throughout the year and  invited many eminent LIS professional from India to write their views on Padmashree Prof. (Dr.) S. R. Ranganathan. Today we are publishing the first contribution which is written by a senior most LIS professional, Dr. M P Satija, UGC Emeritus fellow Dept of Library & Inf Science, Guru Nanak Dev University Amritsar. We would like thanks to Dr. M. P. Satija sir for being with us.

Thanks,

Sandip Das

Organizing Secretary,

SRR 125: A Digital Event

Contribution 1

National Mission for Revival of Ranganathan Legacy (NMRRL): An appeal

Dr. M P Satija

 UGC Emeritus fellow Dept of Library & Inf Science, Guru Nanak Dev University Amritsar-143005, India

I look upon S R Ranganathan (1892-1972)as a national hero in the august company of Dr. C V Raman(1888-1972) and Guru Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). But his achievements in his budding discipline were much more momentous, as he built the profession from scratch, as God created this world out of chaos. Raman and Tagore had something to build on, but Ranganathan had nothing, except opportunities before a visionary.With his vision and intellect Ranganathan created something new and multi-dimensional. He created a mountain with many peaks where even a mole did not exist.  He was a  pioneer who took the library profession to its glorious heights.

            Ranganathan was a freak of nature, a phenomenon experienced once in a blue moon. He was completely devoted to the profession to the exclusion of all personal and social activities. He found professional, personal, social and spiritual joy in the LIS field. He was like something out of this world. He invested everything in his profession, his energy, time, money and the life itself. He never even owned a house and left his wife to her own care. Like Tennyson’s  Ulysses leaving all social responsibilities to his wife and son, he followed knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost bounds of human thought.

            With his abundant creative energy and innovative mind which could think from ab Initio he gave the world library profession something epoch making which is basic and revolutionary, both. His teacher, the eminent WCB Sayers (1881-1960), aptly termed his life work as Ranganathan Age, and the ALA revered him with the title “World Librarian”. His influence was truly international both in research and professional activities. He is credited to coin the term “Library Science”, and demonstrated to the non-believers with his “spiral of scientific method” what a science is, and how library services and management are scientific in nature. In his Five Laws (1931)  he discovered with induction and formulated intuitively the normative principles for the profession. A score of his core books from adult education to library administration, cataloging to reference service are corollaries of these laws –best examples of deductive logic at work in our profession.

            But as an inventor, he is best known for his Colon Classification which created a new paradigm in classification theory and practice. He was at his glory when in the mid-1950s the international bodies like the erstwhile FID and CRG declared faceted classification as the basis of all information analysis and retrieval both in print and mechanical (electronic) environments.

            He is truly and deservedly called the father of Indian librarianship – a one man library movement. Concerned not only with academics and research but also forcefully he advocated the value of libraries to all those who mattered and concerned. He was a crusader who worked tirelessly, used his connections and influence to win academic status for librarians to attract meritorious youth to the profession. If librarians are given equal status of pay grades with their corresponding university teachers, the sole credit goes to him and only him. His successful efforts have inspired librarians in the other Asian countries such as Sri Lanka and Pakistan to get such status for themselves. In Sri Lanka, he is known as the father of Asian Librarianship.

            With his vision to provide library services to all citizens irrespective of their status, age, occupation or residence, he dreamt a dream of making India a republic of libraries. His efforts were to urge Governments to set up libraries by an act of legislation to be confirm footings for the statutory provision of library services as a matter of civic right. He brought home to the bureaucrats and high profile officials the need of library and documentation services in their departments to make informed decisions based on state-of-the-art trends. Documentation is the key to the progress of industrial R&D for the economic and social progress of a nation, he told.In his initial days, the DRTC laid much emphasis on advanced documentation work—call it information management now.

            After him, regretfully, nobody has emerged who is equal to him in his unswerving dedication, selflessness, and innovative mind which endowed him with towering and peerless personality. But nothing has been done to preserve and perpetuate his pristine, precious and huge legacy, nor that momentum has been maintained. We have paid him only lip homage by celebrating 12^th August, his birthday, as librarians day, but it is not yet approved so by the national government. Nothing has been done tangible beyond the in-house efforts of the DRTC, Bangalore to create a small Ranganathan museum. Research on his work is stagnant, though his work like the Five Laws, Prolegomena, Library Administration, Reference Service are still pregnant with many ideas and problems for research even in the digital environment.

            Obsolescence is inherent in knowledge. More progressive a society higher the rate of obsolescence. Ranganathan’s books have been reprinted since 1992, his birth centenary year, but regretfully without any revision; not even a preface was written to bring home the relevance of these new prints. These are being sold at exorbitant prices by a private publisher.  His works should be in open access like the Arizona Ranganathan digital library (http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/).

            Though the Five Laws need no revision, yet these certainly need new interpretation in the digital environment using the Canon of Context and Laws of Interpretation. But the Colon Classification certainly needs revision both in terms of content, methods and devilish notation. Happily many established classification systems have employed Ranganathan’s facet analysis and broader citation order to revise their systems. Newly developed special classification systems are all based on facet analysis and synthesis. Ironically when such borrowing systems are thriving the CC is dying. Nothing has been done to revise it – to revive the national heritage¹. The Government of India has launched a “Make in India” programme, but we have also to preserve, perpetuate, innovate and market what we already have. The LIS profession in India has not risen to the occasion to bring home the value of Ranganathan’s work to the people who matter – the Government, politicians, and the Society at large.Our envious legacy is getting squandered. It should not happen in a civilized country proud of its ancient civilization. In days when the research agencies are liberal in funding research and academic activities, thanks to RUSA, we must make hay while this sun of grants shines. There should be a National Mission for Revival of Ranganathan Legacy (NMRRL). Appropriate agencies and authorities must be approached by the Indian library organizations and centers, especially by the National Mission on Libraries. Ranganathan was a one man library movement. Let us create another movement to make known, perpetuate and innovate what this one YeoManleft for us.

Reference

1.Annals of Library and Information StudiesVol.62 (4) Dec.2015.pp195-302.

Special issue on Ranganathan Philosophy and teachings of S R Ranganathan/ Prof.Jaideep Sharma, Guest editor.http://www.niscair.res.in/ScienceCommunication/ResearchJournals/rejour/annals/annals0.asp

 Papers in this special issue bring out his continuing relevance and also appeal to preserve the heritage he left behind

*** soon we will publish the views of other eminent LIS professionals.