An Indian visionary: Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan

The article begins with a brief biography detailing the life of the visionary mathematician, librarian, and activist Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan before focusing on a study of his scholarly achievements as one of the founding fathers of information science. His five laws of library science are still deeply relevant for professionals responsible for drawing up remits for libraries in the new digital environment. Faceted classification systems – one of his greatest innovations – have found a promising field of application in the faceted browsing allowed by a new OPAC family, among others.
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