Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1986,33(1-2),76-84

CONTRIBUTIONS TO LIBRARY CLASSIFICATIONIN INDIAN LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCEJOURNALS AND BOOKS, 1971-80: AN ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION

With the rapid growth of knowledge in everyfield of study, the subject of Library and Infor-mation Science is no more behind. The amountof literature on the subject is continuouslyincreasing year after year. The number of journ-al articles in the field has also increased consi-derably in recent decades. India is also contri-buting its share to the world production oflibrary literature every year [1] .

The first periodical in Library and Informa-tion Science (LIS) in India was instituted in1912 in Baroda (now in Gujarat state). It wasentitled Library Miscellany and was the brain-child of Dr. William Bordon who was invitedby the. then Maharaja of Baroda, SayajiraoGaekwad, for establishing a network of publiclibraries. This journal ceased publication in1920. Modern Librarian, the second Englishlanguage periodical started in 1930 from Lahore(now in Pakistan), earned a good name andreputation in the library world till it ceasedpublication in 1946. But immediately anotherjournal Indian Librarian was commissionedfrom Lahore itself (shifted to ]ullundur afterpartition in 1947); but it also ceased publicationafter 1982. The fourth English language journalLibrary Bulletin was started in 1942 by theIndian Library Association, but unfortunatelyit soon met its death. Another journal startedtwo years after independence, but this alsoceased after some time. Three more journalswere launched during the 1950s and they arestill continuing. More journals in Library andInformation Science appeared on the sceneduring the 1960s and the 1970s.

76

SEWASINGHDepartment of Library & Information ScienceGuru Nanak Deu UniversityA mritsar 143005

At present there are about 25 periodicalsbeing published from India with at least fourjournals emanating from Delhi alone. ThoughLIS periodicals have a history of more than 70years now, the maximum number- of themstarted appearing during the sixties and theseventies. However, some have also appeared onthe scene in the early. eighties. This increase inthe number of journals has contributed to thegrowth of library literature in article form inthe recent years. Another reason for the quanti-tative growth in Indian library literature is the fastincrease in the number of LIS schools in thepost-independence period, which totalled 55 bythe end of 1984. Every year about 2,000 libraryscience graduates, and about 200 master'sdegree holders in LIS are being produced in thecountry. About 14 LIS schools enrol studentsfor the award of Ph.D. degrees, while therewas only one such school in the country untilthe end of the 1960s. In these schools thestrength of the faculty is about 200 or so, andmost of them contribute to these professionaljournals. With this framework of the LIS educa-tion it is not surprising that the number of perio-dical articles is mounting year after year.

PURPOSE

The present paper is prepared with the purposeof analysing the Indian contributions on libraryclassification to which the doyen of Indianlibrarianship, Dr. S.R. Ranganathan has contri-Luted a great deal.

Though some articles have been written onthe Indian contribution to classification, yet acareful study of library literature produced so

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LIBRARY CLASSIFICATION IN INDIA

far reveals that no analytical study of the natureof the present article has ever been conducted,

SCOPE

The scope of the paper is limited to LibraryClassification. It attempts to analyse the contri-butions made by the teachers, researchers, andstudents of LIS' schools, working librarians indifferent library environments, and also, byforeign scholars.

It includes in its scope the periodical articles,books, and Ph.D. theses on library Classificationpublished in India. Every effort has been madeto lay hands on a variety of sources in orderto cull out maximum amount of information;and the articles contributed in the Encyclo-pedia of Library and Information Sciencehave also been included. It also includes anarticle contributed in Arthur Maltby's Classi-fication in the 1970's: A Second Look, andanother in Coceptual Basis of the Classificationof Knowledge, edited by J.A. Wojciechowski.

Besides, articles on classification from afew edited books in India have also been includ-ed in the present analysis. This is done in orderto give it a broader base and thereby make itas comprehensive as possible.

PERIOD COVERED

In view of the initiation of many new LISjournals, a period of ten years from 1971 to1980 has been taken up for the present study.This decade is chosen also because by now thefield of LIS in India has attained enough matu-rity and so is the case of library classification.

It was during this period that the ThirdInternational Study Conference on Classifica-tion Research was held in Bombay in 1975,the first of its kind in India, wherein libraryclassification and allied areas were discussedkeenly with an attempt towards universalclassification through Board System of Or-dering.

CHOICE OF PERIODICALS

LIS journals are not only published in Englishlanguage but some are also brought out in re-gional languages of India. But the choice of

Vol 33 Nos 1-2 March-June 1986

periodicals is restricted to English languageonly, as it would have been well-nigh impossi-ble to scan several periodicals being publishedin many regional languages.

However, sincere effort is made to scanthrough some such foreign periodicals whereIndian authors mostly contribute their articles.The following periodicals are included (thoughmore were scanned) for the present anlysis.

Indian

1. ALIS Bulletin

2. Annals of Library Scienc~ and Documenta-tion

3. DRTC Annual Seminar

4. Herald of Library Science

5. IASLIC Bulletin

6. ILA Bulletin

7. Indian Librarian

8. International Library Movement (formerlyIndian Library Movement)

9. Journal of Library and Information Science.

10. Libra11. Library Herald12. Library Review13. Library Science with a Slant to Documen-

tanon14. Lucknow Librarian

15. National Librarian

Foreign

1. FIDICR Newsletter

2. International Classification

3. International Library Review

Though no effort has been spared to includeall the issues of the aforesaid journals, yet it is

77

SEWA SINGH

feared that some of them might have eludedthis investigator due to a variety of reasons.An all comprehensive coverag~ is, therefore,not claimed, though that has been the cherishedgoal.

BASIS OF ANALYSISAfter scrutinizing various issues of the journalsincluded and a couple of others, entries wereprepared on cards and classified according to the

. Dewey Decimal Classification (19th, edition),and the subject headings assigned. Later, theentries were grouped under the followingbroad subject headings:

1. Library Classification (general)

2. Classification and Computer

3. Research in Classification

4. General Classification Schedules5. Dewey Decimal Classification

6. Universal Decimal Classification

7. Colon Classification

8. Fundamental Categories

9. Notation

10. Connecting Symbols

11. Phase Relation

12. Rounds and Levels

13. Array and Chain

14. Mnemonics

15. Classification Problems

16. Classification of Specific Subjects

17. Book Number.

The total number of articles contributedby the Indian and foreign authors in Indianjournals on the above-mentioned subject divi-sions of library classification have been analysed.The analysis reveals the subject scatter, the divi-sions popular with the authors, yearly contri-butions of each of the periodicals or articlescatter, Indian contribution vis-a-vis new de-velopments in the subject of study, and so on.

ANALYSIS

A total number of 220 entries have been collec-ted from 15 Indian and 3 foreign periodicalsduring the period 1971-80.

From Table 1 it is revealed that the maxi-mum contribution in article form has beenmade during ~975. The figure of 45 (20.45%)articles is a bit more than double the yearlyaverage of 22 articles. The obvious reason forsuch a large contribution is that the ThirdInternational Study Conference on Classifica-tion Research was held in Bombay, in 1975,the proceedings of which were published later.The second largest number of contributions(i.e., 41 or 18.63%) was made during 1976.Thissize of the output immediately after the con-ference year, and matching with it, was theresult of the first centenary celebrations of theworld famous Dewey Decimal Classification;and authors all over the world including India,made their contributions to the disciplinethrough the professional media.

Besides, the output for the years of 1971,1972 and 1973 is slightly higher than the yearlyaverage. Thus, in all, for five years out of ten

Table 1

Year 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 Total

Number ofarticles 24 26 28 15

% 10.91 11.82 12.73 6.82---------------~---~--------------------------------------78

45 41 14 05 22011 11

20.45 18.63 6.36 5 2.275

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LIBRARY CLASSIFICATION IN INDIA

covered, contributions are close to or morethan the yearly average; while for the remainingfive years i.e., for 1974, 1977, 1978, 1979,and 1980 the contributions are considerablybelow the average mark. The maximum contri-bution is 45 articles for the year 1975, it isonly 5 (2.27%) for 1980, the minimum figureduring the entire decade of 1971-80.

Another visible trend is the general declinein the contributions in the second half of theseventies. For the first five years (1971-1975)a total of 138 articles are published, while forthe subsequent period of five years (1976-1980) the number of articles dwindled down to82 only. This decline is sharply in contrastwith the increase in the number of new LISjournals, establishment of new LIS departmentsat the university level, and subsequent increasein the strength of the faculty, number of work-ing professionals, etc.

In Table 2, the yearwise contributions madein the subjects identified earlier serving as thebasis for this analysis are presented. It revealsthat the maximum number of articles have beenpublished in various journals on library classi-fication in general. Entries on this area wereprepared from almost all the periodicals coveredfor the study. The second largest contributionis on the Dewey Decimal Classification system,the quantitative output of which stands at47 articles. About half of these are published inone single year of 1976 which was celebratedas the centenary year of this classificationscheme all over the world. It was followedby 34 articles on classification of specifi~subjects. Interestingly, most the research arti-cles on this topic are published in only oneperiodical, namely, Library Science with aslant to Documentation, and most of theauthors are associated with the DRTC.

The topic 'classification problems' gets thefourth place with 18 articles written on it.However, these contributions are the productionof first three years, 1971 to. 1973, and noarticle has been reported in periodical literaturethereafter upto 1980.

On Ranganathan's Colon Classification 13articles are published during the seventies, butmany more are published on such aspects ofColon as 'Fundamental Categories', 'Notation','Mnemonics', etc. The third classificationscheme besides Dewey and Colon, on which iswritten in Indian periodicals, is the UniversalDecimal Classification. However, only 7 arti-

Vol 33 Nos 1-2 March-juri e 1986

cles are published on this scheme, five of whichare produced in 1975 only and, unfortunatelyno more paper appeared in the periodicalliterature covered from 1976 to 1980. Onereason is that this scheme is not popular inIndian libraries.

There are many topics of which not morethan one article each is published; while onsome others only two articles each have beenpublished during the period of study.

It may, however, be pointed out that duringseventies there has been shift in emphasis onclassification in comparison to the contribu-tions during 1950s and 1960s. The authorsconcentrated more on the theoretical aspectsof Colon Classification, while now this empha-sis, though continues, is certainly on the dec-line. This is further clear from the Table 2 thatsome new topics which have attracted theattention of the Indian authors during theseventies are 'Research in Classification' and'Classification and Computers'. It may, how-ever, be pointed out that though the ThirdInternational Study Conference on Classifica-tion Research was held in Bombay in 1975where thesauri construction, indexing techni-ques, computer applications, etc were discussed,yet these themes do not seem to have evokedgreat interest among native professionals.

It is regretted to note that hardly anyempirical studies regarding the use of variousclassification systems in Indian libraries is made.There is also lack of basic research using quanti-tative data to know the future patterns, which,however, is the need of the time. With the ex-ception of the DRTC, no other body or indi-vidual is paying required amount of attentiontowards the new trends in classification which,according to Dahlberg[2] include: (1) resurve-ying of the totality of knowledge and bringingabout compatibility between existing classi-fication systems and thesauri; (2) understandingthe elements of classification systems as con-cepts and units of knowledge through theanalysis of which conceptual relationship aredetermined; (3) knowing that classification andindexing are contemporary activities.

AUTHOR SCATTER

Table 3 provides the information about the con-tributions made by the single authors, jointauthors, title entries, etc. The break up isgiven in chronological sequence.

79

Table 2: Subject Scatterco0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

S.No. Subject Year1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 Total Ranking

------------------------------------------~--------------------------------------1. Library Classification 5 1 4 5 22 15 2 3 5 2 64 1

General2. Classification - 2 - - 1 - - - - - 3 8

and Computer

3. Research in 2 - - - 4 - - 1 - - 7 6Classification

4. General Classification 5 2 - - 2 1 - 2 - 1 13 5Schedules

5. Dewey Decimal 1 1 3 4 3 22 6 4 1 2 47 2Classificatio n 00

~6. Universal Decimal 1 1 - - 5 - - - - - 7 6 ~

Classification )-00

7. Colon Classification 1 2 4 2 2 2 13 5 -- - - - Z

8. Fundamental Categories 1 1 2 9 ~- - - - - - - - ::c9. Notation - 2 - - - - - - - - 2 910. Connecting Symbols - - - - 1 - - - - - 1 1011. Phase Relation - - - - - - - - 1 - 1 10

12. Rounds and Levels - - 1 - - - - - - - 1 10

13. Array and Chain - - - - - - - - 1 - 1 10

14. Mnemonics - 1 - - - 1 - - - - _"2 9

15. Classification 3 4 11 - - - - - - - 18 4Problems

> 16. Classification of 7 9 6 1 5 - 4 - 2 - 34 3::sSpecific Subjects::s

r-tr 17. Book Number - 2 1 - - - - - 1 - 4 7enc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------0 Total 24 26 28 15 45 41 14 11 11 5 2200'" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LIBRARY CLASSIFICATION IN INDIA

Of the 220 entri-, included, 165 (75%) arewritten by single auirors only, while the numberof articles written ~)y two authors is 30; andonly 16 articles have been produced by threeor more authors during 1971-80. Thus onlyabout 21% contributions are made by two ormore than two authors during 1971-80; whileabout 4% entries have no authorship and henceare placed under their respective titles. It canbe concluded that the concept of team researchis not popular among the Indian authors in thearea of library classification.

FOREIGN AUTHORSAs seen in Table 4, during 1971-80 a

total of 44 articles have been contributed byforeign authors with an yearly average of 4.4articles. The foreign authors' contributions is20% of the total literature produced on libraryclassification. However, the maximum contribu-tions (34) have been reported by single authorshere as well.

Another feature of the foreign contributionsis that maximum articles have been contributedduring the Third International Study Conferenceon Classification Research.

GEOGRAPHICAL SCATTER

In the present analysis it is revealed that thelargest chunk of articles (about 64) has beenpublished by the teachers and researchers work-ing at Documentation Research and TrainingCentre (DRTC) , Bangalore. Besides, another20 articles have been written by the librarians,teachers, etc., based at Bangalore. Calcutta,though way behind Bangalore, occupied nextplace by producing about 20 articles on variousaspects of library classification. Another impor-tant geographical area is Delhi wherefrom theprofessionals have contributed about 10 papersas reported in various Indian journals.

If the contributions made by the foreignauthors is separately taken into account, asreferred to in Table 4, we are left with about60 articles only which are published by workinglibrarians, LIS teachers, etc., from alloverIndia except Bangalore, Calcutta, and Delhi.It is noted that some articles emanate from suchplaces as Jaipur, Varanasi, Ujjain, Nagpur,Chandigarh, Lucknow, Madras, Amritsar, etc.Though almost every university, out of about130 in India, has its own university library with

Table 3: Author Scatter

Authors Years1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 Total

Single 19 16 24 10 32 32 10 9 8 5 165

Two 5 4 2 8 5 2 1 3 30

Three or more 6 2 3 3 1 1 16

Title 5 2 1 1 9----------------------------------------------------------Total 220

Table 4: Foreign Authors

Authors Single Two

Number ofarticles

34 7

Three of more Total

3 44

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SEWA SINGH

professionally qualified staff, besides about 55LIS de~artme~ts at the university level, yet asmuch hbrary hterature is not being poured outas it should have been.

ARTICLE SCATTER

All the 220 contributions have not appeared inthe periodical literature form alone. In the 15Indian LIS journals included here a total numberof 159 articles on library classification havebeen published during the decade 197J-1980.This works out to about 72.27% of the totalarticles covered in the survey.

Further, the three foreign journals includedin w~ich. Indian authors have published theircontributions on the subject of study, coveronly 3.18% of the total.

Besides, many authors have contributedtheir articles in some books also which havebeen compiled for different purposes from timeto time. The total number of such articlesstands at 54 (24.55%). In this category themaximum contribution of 36 articles is made onthe occasion of the Third International StudyConference on Classification Research.

Only two articles could be traced to havebe~n contributed to foreign published books;while another two contributions made to theworld famous Encyclopedia of Library andInformation Science, edited by Allen Kent et al.are also included.

The journalwise aritcle scatter is presentedin Table 5.

As reported above the maximum number ofarticles have been published in Library Sciencewith a slant to Documentation founded byS.R. Ranganathan in 1964. Its contributionstands at 60 articles (27.27%) during the tenlear period covered. It is followed by 28 articlesm Herald of Library Science started by Prof.P.N. Kaula in 1962. Indian National ScientificD~cumentation Centre's Annals of LibraryScience and Documentation, the oldest sur-viving journal, has published only 11 articlesduring 1971-80; while 15 are published in theAnnual Seminar of the DRTC. Another oldjournal Indian Librarian (ceased publication in1982) stands fifth with 10 published articles toits credit.

CONTRIBUTIONS IN BOOK FORMDuring the period under study, a total numberof 21 books have been brought out in India.

82

As revealed in Table 6, as many as 11books are published on theoretical foundationsof library classification. At least four bookshave be.e? b~ought ?ut on the practical aspectof classification, while two books are publishedon ?oth theory and practice of the subject.Agam, three books are written on author nurn-ber, which is an important part of art andscience of classification. During the seventies,at least one Ph.D. thesis has been produced atthe Panjab University, Chandigarh. The resear-che~ has ext~nded. the schedules of DeweyDecimal Classification (18th edition) in theareas of Indian 'p~iloso.phy, Indian religions,Indology, etc. This 1San 1mportant contributionin this area as the schedules of DDC lack indetail of these subjects.

. The foreign scholars have also contribu-ted in the production of two books as a resultof their lectures at the DRTC, Bangalore.Dr. I. Dahlberg delivered lectures on On ticalSt~ctures and Universal Classification, publish-ed in 1978; while E. Wahlin's topic was Researchon Classification Systems, published in 1979.This is quite" a significant contribution to theexisting body of literature on classification.

Another booklet was produced, also as ar~sult .of lecture, by Sh. Girja Kumar, formerL1br~nan, Jawaharlal Nehru University, NewDelh1, who delivered 'Ranganathan MemorialLecture' at Vikram University, Ujjain in 1975.

One of the books is the outcome of aninternational conference, referred to earlier,held in Bombay in January 1975, the proceed-ings of .which were published later in bookform in 1979.

Another book on classification is produceda result of a seminar organised by the DRTCBangalore in 1977. '. .Yet another important document produced1S indeed a report prepared by M.A. Gopinathof DRTC and submitted to the FID/CR Com-mittee. It deals with classification research inIndia conducted during 1968-73. It is alsopublished by the DRTC, Bangalore in 1974.

Dr. S.R. Ranganathan had published hisp'revie~ of the 7th. edition of Colon Classifica-tion in 1971, and it was also published by theDRTC.

From the above, it becomes quite clear thatthe DRTC is the only institution contributedirnrnensly to the field of library classification·through p.u.blishing at least five books, by wayof orgalllsmg lectures, seminars, talks, eLC.

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S.No.

1.

2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.ll.12.13.14.15.

1.

2.3.

Subject

Number ofBooks

LIBRARY CLASSIFICATION IN INDIA

Table 5: Article Scatter

Name of Journal

Indian

ALIS BulletinAnnals of Library Science and DocumentationDRTC Annual SeminarHerald of Library ScienceIASLIC BulletinILA BulletinIndian LibrarianInternational Library MovementJournal of Library and Information ScienceLibraLibrary HeraldLibrary ReviewLibrary Science with a slant to DocumentationLucknow LibrarianNational Librarian

Foreign

FIDICR NewsletterInternational ClassificationInternat: mal Library Review

Table 6: Subject Scatter - Books

Classification(Theory)

Classificatio n(Practice)

Classification(Theory &Practice)

11 4 2

Vol 3.3 Nos] -2 March] une 1QR6

Author!BookNumber

3

Number ofarticles

1

111528

71

10104142

602

3

51

1

PhDTheses

Total

1 21

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SEWA SINGH

It is thus making efforts to fulfil one of itsaims for which it has been set up.

CONCLUSIONSThis analysis reveals that Indian authors haveshown a lack of interest in a number of topicssuch as, Research in Classification, UniversalDecimal Classification, Notation, and manyconcepts of Colon Classification scheme likeFundamental Categories, Array and Chain, etc.Data in Table 2 reveal the dearth of literaturepublished in these and other recent topics dur-ing 1971-1980. Though there have been occa-sional discussions about the role and need of'Research in Library Classification' yet notmuch efforts have been made by the teachersin LIS as well as librarians to conduct researchin this area.

In view of the latest developments, asrecorded earlier on library classification, theIndian contribution is certainly not in tune withthese developments. There is need, therefore,to devote more attention to these areas in theyears to come.

As expected, the maximum number ofarticles as well as books have bee.i publishedon the general area of library classification.Articles in periodicals only have contributedabout 29.1% of the total articles covered.

The maximum number of articles have beenpublished in the year 1975, while the minimumnumber of 5 articles were reported in theprofessional journals in the year 1980.

The number of articles during the first fiveyears' (1971-75) is much higher (138) thanthat (82) of the succeeding five years (1976-80).

This is in spite of the fact that the number ofLIS journals also increased in the second half ofthe seventies as also the professional manpower.

Single authors dominate the scene of contri-butions working out at 75% of the total. output.

During all these years foreign authors havebeen quite active and have published 20% ofthe total articles thereby registering a signifi-cant contribution.

The maximum number of articles appearingin various professional journals have emanatedfrom Bangalore followed by Calcutta and Delhi.Other geographical areas are not as significantfrom this point of view.

In conformity with this conclusion, it isalso noticed that the maximum articles on li-brary classification are published in LibraryScience with a slant to Documentation pub-lished from the DRTC, followed by the Heraldof Library Science. Similarly, maximum bookshave also been published by the DRTC, thusmaking a significant contribution to libraryclassification. This speaks volumes of its activityon this field quite in conformity with its setgoals.

•

REFERENCES

1. Sewa Singh: An analysis of the contributions tolibrary and information science journals in India,1971-82. International Library Review 1984. 16,22.1-230.

2. Dah 10erg I: Reports and communications. Inter-national Classification 1979, 6, 36.

ERRATA:

1. In Annals March-June 1985 Vol. 32(1-2)pAl the name of joint author should readS.H.K. Reddy and not S.K. Reddy.

2, In Annals Sept-Dee 1985 Vol. 32(3-4) onp.93 the name of author and joint authorshould read M. Mahapatra & S.K. Musibrespectively.

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