S.R. Ranganathan

The Story

A brilliant mathematician who taught at universities, Ranganathan was appointed the first librarian of the University of Madras in 1924 — a post he accepted without any training, and which he turned into his life's work. He studied library science in England and returned to build the discipline in Bhārat from nothing.

His Five Laws of Library Science — books are for use; every reader his book; every book its reader; save the time of the reader; the library is a growing organism — are the founding principles of modern librarianship, taught in every library school in the world. His Colon Classification and his faceted theory of classification remain foundational to information science.

He founded the library science departments of universities of Bhārat, edited the library journals of Bhārat, and travelled the world advising on libraries. He died in 1972, and his name is honoured in the Ranganathan Centre and in the library science that every library follows of Bhārat — the discipline he created almost single-handedly.