Any concept has an initiator. My initiation into comparative and international librarianship is based on, first, the training of Prof. H. A. Khan, retired, Department of Library and Information Science, Mysore University, India, and second, the collaborative efforts of Prof. Donald G. Davis Jr., Emeritus Professor, University of Texas, School of Information.***
The issue I am trying to resolve, then is, who are the Indian contributors?
Any clues? We have in the past decades celebrated our national contributors, and mentors. But who are the internationally & / or globally outstanding Indian information professionals, librarians, etc.?
The question is: A future LIS historian may ask, who has contributed these?
Then, are we not responsible to identify, check citations, analyze literary and other contributions and document our movers, leaders, mentors, etc.?
To start with, I have picked some names (see the title of this Blog and the list below--none is a final list, I confess). I am aware that this is a national task. One individual's judgment will be always questionable.
My criteria to select people is those who have worked / consulted / motivated outside India, i.e., at the global level (or at least bi-nationally). These, I think are the leaders that need to be appreciated in comparative and international librarianship. Is this a valid criteria?
To start the history writing project, I following aree identified as India's contributors:
Mr. L. J..Haravu (his contributions to agricultural and development information systems and centres especially in Africa, through FAO, CGIAR; through international training programmes, etc.
Mr. Abdul Rahman Khamaruddin (his contributions to information systems and networking in the Arab region, through the Arab League and its constituent specialized organizations, Unesco, Islamic Development Bank, etc.)
Dr. I.K.Ravichandra Rao (Informetrics);
B.K. Sen (Informetrics);
I.N. Sen Gupta (informetrics);
Subbiah Arunachalam (Arun) (scientometrics; open source movement);
Dr. Shalini Urs (Director, International School of Information Management, Vidhyanidhi project, and on the organzing and coordinating committees of more than one international conferences, such as, the ICADL series, one of India’s most international traveling information professional currentliy, etc.)
Dr. T.B. Rajashekar (late)
Prof. Pauline Cochrane (India-biased international American info professional)
Dr. John Rose (India-biased American-French info professional; coordinated and managed many info programmes for developing countries (Asia, India particularly, Africa…)
Do you know any others? Please let me know, and I will add on.
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***Incidentally, both influenced me to be a good student of library history, and I thank them for the essence of historiography I tried to spread around.
Labels: India, Reference Sources
