Milestones

The Department is considered the ‘GANGOTRI’ of library education, library movement, and library service in the Country. The department has set many milestones and benchmarks in the growth and development of library education and research. The most exciting facts, which has been extracted from the forthcoming book of Prof. KP Singh are given as:

1. The first department setup (1946) in the country organized the Postgraduate department to start formal LIS education (1947).

2. The first department in the whole Commonwealth countries second in the world after the USA to start PG Programme in library science in 1950.

3. First department in the whole commonwealth countries which recognized by UNESCO a center of academic excellence known as ‘An Associate UNESCO Project’ in 1952.

4. First Department in the whole commonwealth countries leading to start Ph.D. Degree in 1950. The first Ph.D. was awarded to Dr. DB Krishna Rao under the supervision of Dr. SR Ranganathan in 1957.

5. First Department in the country to introduced Mater of Philosophy (M. Phil) in library science in 1978.

6. The first department of the country to have the first ‘National Professorship in Library Science’ conferred to Dr. SR Ranganathan in 1957 along with the all-time great legends Nobel Laureate Prof. CV Raman, Prof. SN Bose, Bharat Ratana PV Kaine, and Prof. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee.

7. First department in the country which has academic collaborations with the Rockefeller Foundation, the USA in 1960. With the financial assistance of Rockefeller Foundation, the teachers like late Prof. S Das Gupta, Prof. PB Mangla, late Prof. DS Aggarwal, Shri AL Kapoor, and Prof. Krishan Kumar went to the USA for advanced studies in library science.

8. The first department in the country to had Guest Professors from foreign universities. Prof. Morris Arthur Gelfand from New York University, USA taught as guest faculty at Department from 1966-1977. Prof. George S Bonn from the University of Hawai taught in the department for almost five years (1971-1976).

9. First Department in the Country to introduce Computer Application course in Library Science (1972).

10. First Department in the Country to install a bust of legendary Dr. SR Ranganathan, the Founder of Department and Father of Library Science in India in 2008.

11. First Department of the country to had the first ‘National Tagore Fellow’ through its alumni Prof. PB Mangla (2010). This prestigious national fellowship was instituted by the Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India on the 126th Birth anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.

12. First Department in the Country as an indelible tag of Four Padma Shree namely Dr. SR Ranganathan (1957); Prof. S Bashiruddin (1960); Prof. BS Kesavan (1967) and Prof. PN Kaula (2002).

Compiled by

Prof. KP Singh

The Organising Secretary of ‘Platinum Jubilee of the Department &

Coordinator Academic & Cultural Affairs, Faculty of Arts, DU.