S.R RANGANATHAN Contribution

S.R RANGANATHAN Contribution

1.   Five Laws of Library science 

These were published in 1931.   The five laws are the following simple statements:

           Books Are For Use,

           Every Reader His/her Book,

           Every Book Its Reader,

           Save The Time Of The Reader,

           The Library Is A Growing Organism

2.   Colon Classification

 Ranganathan published his first major work on his new classification system ,the Colon Classification.  Its basic principles, however, require the analysis of a subject to determine its various  aspects, called facets, and the synthesis of a class number from the numbers assigned in published schedules to different facets. Thus, Colon Classification is known as an analytico -synthetic classification system. Ranganathan was the first to fully explicate facet theory, and his work has had a major impact on modern classification schemes.

3.  Classified Catalogue Code

 In 1934 Ranganathan published another important work, the Classified Catalogue Code. He maintained, however, that a catalogue should consist of two components.

    One part should be classified by subject, reflecting the library's classification system, with class number entries.  The other should be a dictionary catalogue, including author, title, series, and similar identifiers, as well as alphabetized subject entries. The function of a catalogue is to itemize works so they can be found by author, title, series, and so forth. It must also allow readers to review the selection of works on a given subject.

4. Chain Index

    To determine subject entries for the dictionary catalogue, He devised an ingeniously Simple method called chain indexing. This method simply uses each facet of a subject, together with its immediately preceding facets, as an index entry.  Thus, all important aspects of the subject, from the most general to the most specific, are automatically covered. Chain indexing can be adapted to other classification systems as well.

Honours

        Ranganathan's contributions were acknowledged in 1964, he was named honorary president of the Second International Conference on Classification Research, Held in Elsinore, Denmark.

He also received a number of other high honours.

In 1935 and 1957, the Indian government bestowed on him the honorific title Rao Sahib and the public service award Padmashri respectively.

 In 1948, he received an honorary doctorate of literature from the University of Delhi.

In 1964, he received the same degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

 In 1965, he was made a national research professor by the Indian government, and in 1970, he received the Margaret Mann Citation in Cataloguing and Classification of the American Library Association (ALA).

 After his death, the FID,in 1976, established the Ranganathan award in his memory. This certificate of merit is awarded biennially for a recent outstanding contribution in the field of classification.