[LIS-Forum] Prof. S. Parthasarathy is more

[Francis Jayakanth]

From: K.S. Raghavan
ksragav at hotmail.com

The members of the Boards of Trustees of the Sarada Ranganathan
Endowment for Library Science and the Ranganathan Centre for
Information Studies (Chennai) regret to announce the passing of Prof.
S. Parthasarathy, Former Head of INSDOC (CSIR). The end came on 12th
April 2021, just a few months before his 104th birthday. A direct
disciple and a close associate of Dr. S. R. Ranganathan, Prof.
Srirangapattanam Parthasarathy was born on 23rd August 1917. He had
his higher education at the University of Madras and University of
Chicago. Before joining CSIR, Prof. Parthasarathy worked in the Delhi
University Library and also taught as a Lecturer in the Department of
Library Science of the University of Delhi. At INSDOC he was
responsible for several innovative services and programmes including
the INSDOC List and the Union Catalogue of Scientific Serials. He was
also closely associated with the training programme of INSDOC leading
to Associateship in Documentation. Prof. Parthasarathy was one of the
key persons in organizing the FID / CR 3rd International Conference on
Classification Research (held at BARC, Mumbai) in January 1975. He was
also instrumental in setting up the documentation subcommittee of the
Indian Standards Institution (now, Bureau of Indian Standards) and
served as a member of the committee for many years. Several library /
documentation related standards have been prepared by the committee.
Prof. Parthasarathy was also a member of the UGC Review Committee on
library science education in India (The report of the committee
published under the title ‘Library Science in Indian Universities’
served as a model and framework for LIS education programmes in the
country for several years). He was also a member of the UGC Committee
on University libraries, which suggested standards for university
libraries. Prof. Parthasarathy was active in several committees of the
FID. He served as a member of the FID Committee on Developing
Countries and also as a FID Council Member (1970-75). He also served
as an expert / consultant in Africa to international organizations
including UNIDO. He was an expert member in Documentation at the
Industrial Development Centre for Arab States, Cairo. Prof.
Parthasarathy was also one of the members of the Advisory Committee
set up by the Department of Science & Technology (DST) of the
Government of India for preparing the blueprint for NISSAT.

After his retirement from INSDOC. Prof. Parthasarathy served as an
Honorary professor at DRTC, Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore
for some time. He moved to Chennai in 1977 and remained active till
the very end. He was an active member of the Madras Library
Association and was the guiding force in organizing several programmes
under its banner including the All India Library Conference of ILA
(1991) held in Chennai in the birth centenary year of Dr. Ranganathan
of which he was the Director. He was also one of the key persons in
the organization of the 2nd International ISKO Conference held in
Chennai in 1992. He played an important role in the creation of the
documentary on S. R. Ranganathan (brought out by the Madras Library
Association in 1992 as part of the birth centenary celebrations of Dr.
Ranganathan). He was one of the founder trustee of the Ranganathan
Centre for Information Studies (Founded by Bharat Ratna Sri C.
Subramanian in association with Prof. M. S. Swaminathan, Prof. M.
Anandakrishnan, Prof. A. Neelameghan and others). Prof. Parthasarathy
had also been a long-time trustee of the Sarada Ranganathan Endowment
for Library Science and has been instrumental in organizing many of
its activities including the ISKO International Conference held in the
University of Mysore in 2012 and  SRR at 125: Revisiting Ranganathan: An
International Conference held at the Indian Institute of Technology
Madras in 2017.

Prof Parthasarathy was actively involved in planning and implementing
higher education programmes. He was one of the members of the Board of
Management of the MOP Vaishnav College for Women, Chennai and took
keen interest in planning the programmes and activities of the
College. Even at age 100, he was an avid reader and would regularly
visit the American Library, the British Council Library, and the
Madras University Library. He was a regular at the conferences of the
Indian Library Association and IASLIC. To honour this legend, a
festschrift was brought out in 2009 (Library and Information Systems:
From Alexandrian Heritage to Social Networking). In his passing the
profession has lost a tall leader, a visionary, and a great human
being.

K. S. Raghavan

Member-Secretary, Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science

Trustee, Ranganathan Centre for Information Studies

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