Dwarika Nath Banerjee

Dwarika Nath Banerjee is a Librarian and an Academician who has been in public service for over 5 decades. He served as the third Director, (Now Director General) of National Library of India, Kolkata from 1992 to 1997. Prior to that he was the Librarian at Indian Institute of Technology, serving IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kanpur.
== Early Life and Education == 
Dwarika Nath was born in Chakradharpur, a town in West Singhbhum district in the state of Bihar (now Jharkhand), India. His father served the Bengal Nagpur Railway and was posted at Chakradharpur when he was born. After high school, he enrolled in Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata but could not continue as he was not able to afford the cost. Later while working, he obtained his degrees in Biology and Library and Information Science, from University of Calcutta. The Master of Arts, MA and Doctor of Philosophy Ph. D followed later also while working, from Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University in Sociology.
== Significant Contributions ==
As the Director of National Library of India, he led the creation of the Bhasha Bhawan that is dedicated to host books, periodicals and artifacts related to 14 Indian and 5 international languages. He was instrumental in the creation of this iconic place of learning, from the ideation, design to opening it up for public service. He recognized the importance of language in our culture and heritage and the role it plays in the contemporary society. He provided astute vision, relentless passion and firm direction in creation of this magnificent center of learning. He was inspired by Saraswathi Mahal Library in Thanjavur, the 16th century library, were he also served as Government of India, representative to the Board of Trustees. He modelled his prototype, influenced by his visits to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Library of Congress, Washington DC, Library of Catalonia, Barcelona and New York Public Library, New York.
Dwarika Nath was progressive in adopting modern technology. He believed in automating the Library services such as Search based Library catalog, digitizing and digitalizing the Library artifacts and paper based Gazettes and documents, using the latest technologies such as Microform available during his time. His projects were focused in bringing vast range of information and knowledge in a compressed format for effective consumption. This was the earlier phase of big data. Scholars and researchers, benefited from this condensed information for it offered mobility and easy synthesizing. 
For fast and wider accessibility, he worked on a number of evolving concepts of his time. Knowledge and resources were scattered across many institutions, and it was becoming prohibitively expensive to acquire and consume, similar to the distributed stand alone server hardware of the earlier decades, prior to server farming and cloud computing. He felt the need to create a framework for shared information across number of information owners, to reduce the cost and to enhance accessibility. These were the early years of World Wide Web and it was also the time, to move to digitally connected libraries and shared information systems. He was one of the earlier proponent of this grand idea, that later took the shape of Information and Library Network INFLIBNET Center, an autonomous organization, created for exchanging information resources across universities and information network.
He co- sponsored a team of researchers from the Library of Congress, United States for microfilming rare collection of Indian books, British correspondence, Official Decree, Rulings, Manuscripts and Newspaper. Some of these invaluable artifacts, over a period of time, due to heat and humidity was turning brittle and crumbled, so fragile that it would not be long, from total disintegration. Such collections needed preservation or else at least digitization. Thanks to such efforts, that the great knowledge would be accessible to researchers of the coming generations.
During his tenure as the Director of National Library of India, he was invited to be a member of the Governing Body of Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla to provide expert knowledge and guidance in the matter of policy making and long term objectives of the organization. He organized book exhibitions and selections and invited renowned academicians and distinguished scholars. 
He spoke in number of international conferences and Libraries around the world, bringing awareness to the world about India's historical achievement in information management, and promoting India's position of information sharing and accessibility with the objectives of connecting societies, enable learning, collaboration, partnership and exchange of ideas and thoughts. Significant among his lectures were in National Diet Library , Tokyo, National Library of Australia, formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, in Canberra, Australia and Library of Congress, Washington DC, National Library José Martí, Habana, Cuba to name a few. Daedalus books , invited him to speak in New York City, along with other top 10 eminent librarians of the world, about perspectives of book publishing in India. 
He has authored many research papers, newsletters , articles, felicitator in numerous professional books and publications. 
== Awards and recognition ==
He was a member of many of professional associations, including the Indian Association of Special Libraries and Information Centres IASLIC, Indian Library Association, ILA, Bengal Library Association, BLA to name a few. 
He received Jawahar Lal Nehru Gold Medal from Institution of Engineers (India), for his contribution in the field of Information Science, from the then Vice President of India, Mohammad Hidayatullah. His work included use of Markov Chain analysis in Lexicon linkages and contextual mapping using clustered distance algorithms for creation of knowledge catalogue. Prof. Amitabha Bhattacharyya, an eminent Engineer and past Director of IIT Kanpur, co-created the mathematical modelling for his work. He continued to provide his support and guidance through his career and life.
== After Retirement ==
After retiring from National Library of India, Dwarika Nath continued to be active in his field for many years. He was advising a number of Academic and Research institutes such as Indian Statistical Institute , Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, Visva Bharati University, Union Public Service Commission and many others, in their selection Committees. He was advising Heritage Institute of Technology HIT, to build a world class Library to support their ambitious plans of their academics and research. Many other for-profit organizations later modeled their Library and information facility based on the success of HIT. 
== Personal Life ==
Dwarika Nath is married to Uma Banerjee, who served as a Librarian to the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and provided the support and encouragement, through out his life. His daughter is Suparna and his son in law is Dr. Bibek Debroy, a noted Economist. His son is Sudipto, who is settled in the US with his wife Danielle. 
== Controversies ==
During his tenure as the Director of National Library of India from 1992 to 1997, there were two rival employee unions, frequently clashing with each other for trivial issues such as a promotion or termination of employees. . This took away a lot of attention and time of the Director that could be spent more productively for new projects. Governor Tathagata Roy in his Bengali book Bampontha Bhayankari, Banglay o Bideshe (Bengali) (Mitra & Ghosh, Kolkata, 2020), applauds Dr. D. N. Banerjee's leadership and resilience during the days of left rule in West Bengal. 
During those days of turmoil, he formed a close relationship with the then Governor of West Bengal, Professor Saiyid Nurul Hasan. They would discuss ways to raise awareness and desire, amongst readers, scholars and researchers, to appreciate reading and curating.
After his retirement, the Government took a long time to find his replacement as a full time Director, , as it was difficult to find a person with his vision, wisdom and pragmatic enthusiasm. 
Category:1935 births
Category:Librarians
Category:Academicians