Ranganathan, Shivala Ramanrita (1892–1972)

Indian librarian. Originally a university teacher of mathematics, in 1924 Ranganathan was appointed librarian of Madras University, a post he held until 1944. In 1924 he went to University College, London, to study librarianship. He was taught classification by W C Berwick Sayers, and was inspired to produce a scheme of his own, based on a revolutionary method of analysis into simple, or 'isolate' terms, rather than on the enumeration of compound terms, as had previously been the standard procedure. He called his scheme the Colon Classification, taking the name of the first symbol he used to designate these simple concepts or facets.

Ranganathan's approach to the organization of knowledge in libraries profoundly influenced thought on classification practice in Great Britain. Ranganathan's scheme is little used, even in India, but the thought behind it and the careful analysis on which it is based, together with the attention paid by its maker to vocabulary and definition, provided the foundation for the more sophisticated indexing techniques developed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Although best known for his work on classification, Ranganathan wrote on all aspects of librarianship and was greatly concerned for the development of the library service and professional education in India. He was university librarian and professor of library science at Benares Hindu University (1945–47) and professor of library science at the University of Delhi (1947–55). This last appointment made him director of the first Indian school of librarianship to offer higher degrees. Ranganathan was president of the Indian Library Association from 1944–53. In 1957 he was elected an honorary member of the Federation Internationale de Documentation (FID) and was made a vice-president for life of the Library Association of Great Britain.