1. Research in library and information science started in India in the 1930s led by Dr. S.R. Ranganathan who made contributions to areas like classification, cataloguing, and library administration. 2. Formal research is now conducted at the master's, MPhil, PhD, and D.Litt levels in India. Current trends in research include user studies, digital libraries, cross-language information retrieval, and developing open source software. 3. However, issues like a lack of funding and infrastructure as well as plagiarism impact the quality of research being conducted. Improving research productivity will rely on contributions from researchers and their guides.

1. CURRENT TRENDS IN LIBRARY &
INFORMATION SCIENCE
RESEARCH

2. INTRODUCTION
• Research is a careful critical study or
examination in seeking facts or principles;
intelligent & diligent investigation in order to
ascertain something.
• In India, individual research started in 1930s
with Dr. S.R. Ranganathan who was actively
involved in various areas of librarianship viz.
classification, cataloguing, documentation, librar
y administration, etc.

3. • LIS education in India though started as early
as in 1911 & was gradually recognized as a
full-fledged discipline.
• Separate departments were set up in the
universities offering courses leading to
bachelors & master degrees.
• This eventually set the stage for formal
research activities in the subject.
• At present, formal research in LIS is
conducted at 4 levels, viz. MLISc, Mphil, PhD
& D.Litt.

4. TRENDS IN LIS RESEARCH
• In the field of Library Science research, US
made the premier attempt.
• The study entitled ‘A Guide to Sources of 17th
century English History in Selected Reports of
the Royal Commission on Historical
Manuscripts’ by Eleanor. S. Upton was
awarded PhD by the Chicago University in
1930.

5. • It is considered as the 1st doctoral degree in Library
Science.
• During 1950s universities
namely, Illinois, Michigan, Columbia, Western
Reserve, California & Rutgers produced 129 PhD
dissertations.
• Library schools in USA focused their research during
1990s in the following areas:
Management
Utilization of variety of communication
media & technologies in Library &
Information Centres.

6. Acquisition & processing.
Information
systems, documentation, IT, inform
ation storage & data processing.
User studies
LIS education
Micrographics
Databases

7. RESEARCH IN UK
• Library science research in UK was started
during 1930s.
• The 1st doctoral thesis accepted by the
London School of Economics was on a core
Library science subject in 1935.
• The title of the thesis was ‘The Public library
Service under English Local Government’.

8. • The areas of research selected by library
schools include:
Novel methods of representing &
storing of data.
Chemical structure of information
for manipulation & retrieval
User studies
Systems evaluation

9. Organizational problems in the
application of IT
Technology transfer & policies
Information systems in developing
countries
Education & training of
information specialists
Computer based aids for online
education
Computer in libraries

10. Expert systems
Use of automatic classification
Classification techniques for
document retrieval
Application of parallel processing
techniques to information
retrieval, etc.

11. LIBRARY SCIENCE RESEARCH
IN INDIA
• Library science in India was initiated by Dr.
S.R. Ranganathan in 1931, with the
formulation of Five Laws of Library science.
• He even graded them as Normative
principles, Fundamental
laws, Canons, Principles & postulates.
• Ranganathan cut new grounds & blazed new
trials in Library science initially by solo-
research.

12. • Ranganathan’s era is characterized by a
period of intellectual contribution to the
theory of Library Science, particularly library
classification.
• The 1st PhD in Library science was awarded to
Dr. D.B. Krishna Rao for his study on ‘Facet
analysis and depth classification of
agriculture under the guidance of Dr. S.R.
Ranganathan & S.Dasgupta in 1957.’

13. • Dr. J.S. Sharma, was the 1st Indian & one of the
1st few to earn doctorate from USA.
• He was awarded PhD by Michigan University for
his thesis ‘Mahatma Gandhi: A Descriptive
Bibliography ’.
• The 2nd PhD in LIS in India was awarded in 1977
by Dr. Pandey S.K. Sharma for his thesis
‘Expansion and modification of Dewey Decimal
Classification (18) for classifying indological
books with special reference to Indian
Philosophy, and Indian religion by Punjab
university ’.

14. • The study conducted by Varalekshmi on
research areas & trends in LIS in India
pointed out, there is a shortage of
investigation in subject areas such as
information storage & retrieval, methods to
increase resource sharing, scientific
communication & its
channelization, education for LIS.

15. CURRENT TRENDS
• According to National Knowledge
Commission (NKC) report (March
2007), “India has a long tradition of libraries
& has contributed to the development of
basic concepts in the discipline such as
fundamental principles of library services &
knowledge organization tools, R & D
activities in LIS today are extremely limited.
This is utmost concern for the growth of LIS
profession in India”.

16. NKC has recommended:
User studies
Organization of community
information & development of
appropriate standards
Standardization of Indian names
Vocabulary control
Development of open source
software

17. Development of digital libraries both
in English & Indian languages
Cross language information retrieval
&
Subjects that have high potential of
doing research in LIS.

18. Current trends….
• Every year the Indian Association of Teachers
of Library & Information Science (IATLIS)
holds a seminar on topics of Library
education & research.
• The literature on Library education &
research is enormous, though repetitive &
inflated.
• The blame of wholly put on the lack of
infrastructure & unavailability of funds.

19. • The new maladies that have recently inflicted
the LIS research are:
Ghost writing
Outsourcing of data processing
Data cooking
Rampant plagiarism

20. CONCLUSION
• Research in LIS briefly means the collection &
analysis of original data on a problem of
librarianship, done within the library schools
according to scientific & scholarly standards.
• Research in this connection broadly includes
investigations, studies, surveys, academic
work at the doctoral level & research by
practicing librarians & information
professionals, etc.

21. • To any research productivity, the
contributions of the researcher & their guide
is highly significant.
• It is the time worth remembering Dr. S.R.
Ranganathan & many other professionals
who have contributed much to the
development of the profession as well as
knowledge and skill.

22. REFERENCE
• Devarajan, G.(2011). Prolegomena to research
methodology. New Delhi: Ess Ess Publications. pp.
47-51.
• Kumar, P.S.G. (2004). Research methods and
Statistical techniques. New Delhi: B.R. Publishing
Corporation.
• Chandrashekara, M & Ramasesh, C.P. (2009).
Library & information science research in India.
Asia- Pacific Conference on Library & Information
Education & Practice. 530-537.

23. • Satija, M.P. (2010). What ails doctoral research
in library & information science in India?.
DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information
Technology. 30 (5). 61-66.
• Wagh, Sanjay N. (2011). Research in library &
information science in India (2004-08): An
analytical study of PhD programme.
International Referred Research Journal. 17(1).
78-79.
• Patra, Swapan Kumar & Prakash Chand. (2006).
Library & information science research in India:
A bibliometric study. Annals of Library &
Information Studies. 53. 219-223.