[LIS-Forum] MyLIISA Celebrates Ranganathan's Day

[N.S. Harinarayana]

This is an excerpt from the talk given by Dr. K.N. Prasad, Executive
Officer, Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science, Rajajinagar
Bangalore 560010 at the ‘Librarians Day’ celebrations organized by Mysore
Librarians and Information Scientists Association (MyLISA) on 9th August
2010 at MMK & SDM Mahila Vidyalaya, Mysore.  The speaker can be reached
through his email srels at dataone.in. This report is prepared by Mr. N.
Vasantha Raju, Librarian, First Grade Govt. College, Periyapatna, Mysore
Dist.

The Chief Guest of the event Dr. K.N. Prasad, Executive Officer, Sarada
Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science, Bangalore gave a special lecture
on “S.R. Ranganathan in the 21st century”. He spoke about the need of
revisiting Ranganthan’s contribution in light of the new developments in
Information and communication technologies. He mentioned how Ranganathan’s
facet analysis is being used by the search engine giants like Yahoo! and
others for increasing the efficiency of information retrieval.  He linked
the epic Ram and Hanuman relationship to the modern information world. If
the browser represents Hanuman in seach mode, then the database is the
mountain. The information is hidden somewhere.  How do you find it?
 Ranganathan provided a solution in the form of revolutionary system in 1933
through his book called Colon Classification.

Prasad pointed how Ranganathan’s five laws were revisited and re interpreted
by many scholars across the globe. He said these five laws provided
inspiration to other authors and they have presented different principles
based five laws.  As illustrative examples he cited works such as: ‘Five new
laws of librarianship’ by Michael Gorman (1995), ‘Principles of distance
education’ by Sanjaya Mishra (1998), Five laws of the software library’ by
Mentor Cana (2003), ‘Five laws of children’s librarinship’ by Virginia A.
Walter (2004), ‘Five laws of web connectivity’ by Lennart Björneborn (2004);
and ‘Five laws of diversity/affirmative action’ by Tracie D. Hall (2004).
The Iranian librarian Aliroz Noruzi enunciated five laws of the web exactly
similar to Ranganathan’s law by replacing ‘books’ with ‘web’.   He
elaborated on how each of the five laws applies to the web resources.

Prasad mentioned some of the stalwarts of library and information science
like Eugene Garfield, Jesse H. Shera acknowledged Ranganathan for his
seminal contribution to the international librarianship. He mentioned a few
of the examples of how his idea being used in management. He cited the
example of Japanese 5 “S” workplace organization principles. He also
highlighted the Ranganathan contributions in developing quality standards
for Bureau of Indian Standard.

Special invitee of the day Prof. Nageshwar Rao, Head Department of Commerce,
MMK and SDM College for Women shared his association and experience in
dealing with librarians and the importance of the role of librarians in
today’s context.  Prof. Mallinath Kumbar made the presidential remarks on
the occasion.

As a part of the librarians day celebration Ranganathan's Monologue on
Melvil Dewey  audio event (1964 recording of the great librarian S.R.
Ranganathan giving a fifteen-minute talk about his connections with Melvil
Dewey) was organized. Ranganathan's Monologue on Melvil Dewey can be found
at: http://www.miskatonic.org/library/ranganathan-audio.html.

Mr. Naganna, Librarian, University of Agricultural College, Mandya,
highlighted the various professional activities conducting under the banner
of MyLISA for the professional developments. Mrudula student of JSS Public
School rendered the invocation and Mrs. Padma, librarian MMK SDM College for
Women welcomed the guest.  Sri. Siddalinga Swamy of JSS College, Mysore
anchored the program.

Dr. N.S. Harinarayana, Mr. M.V. Sunil and Dr. M. Chandrashekara Executive
members of  MyLISA, Mr. Basappa, Secretary MyLISA. Dr. I. R. N. Gouder
Library adviser, University of Mysore, Dr. C.P. Ramasesh, Deputy Librarian,
UG Library, University of Mysore, Mysore and librarians of various colleges
in and aroun Mysore, Mysore university library staff, students and research
scholars of the Department of Library and Information Science, university of
Mysore attended the event.



-- 
N.S. Harinarayana
Department of Library and Information Science
University of Mysore, Manasagangotri
Mysore 570 006
Off. Ph: (0821) 2419393

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