Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan (1892-1972) AU16: The in-text citation "Ranganathan (1892-1972)" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. is considered the father of library science (or librarianship), documentation, and information science in India with his vast knowledge, direction, purpose, creativity, sensitivity, and vision for the growth of the intersecting professions in the country, and the world at large. Amongst his numerous achievements in library and information science, Ranganathan is most well-known globally for the five laws of library science, development of the first faceted classification (i.e., Colon Classification), and chain indexing for deriving subject-index entries.
Published in Chapter:
Extending Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan in the 21st Century: Social Justice Laws of Librarianship
Bharat Mehra (University of Alabama, USA)
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-8363-0.ch016
Abstract
This chapter traces the actualities and possibilities of representing social justice and social equity concerns in LIS via extending Ranganathan's five laws of librarianship within today's contemporary neoliberal and geopolitical realities. Blinders in librarianship are identified in its resistance to intentional, systematic, action-oriented, community-engaged, and impact-driven strategies of social justice and real change owing to its White-IST (white + elitist) roots. These are speculated in relation to the profession's undervaluing of Ranganathan's contributions because of his South Asian (i.e., East Indian) origins as a result of the pedestalizing of its Anglo/Eurocentric components within the legacies of a colonized and imperialistic world order. A manifesto of social justice laws of librarianship is proposed to address past and recent lapses in LIS.