Documentation Research and Training Center (DRTC): A Historical Perspective

Abstract

Progress in education and research, which go hand in hand, are the two key variables to determine the societal impact and ensure the future sustainability of an academic discipline. Since the inception of Library and Information Science (LIS) as an accredited academic discipline, the Documentation Research and Training Centre (DRTC), Bangalore, has been  a major, if not sole, progenitor of almost all pedagogical and research advances in the Indian LIS milieu. The present work, a first-of-its-kind historiography, presents a detailed multifaceted description of the historical origin of the DRTC. It also describes the vision, foundation and advances in LIS incubated at DRTC, the de-facto premier information school of the Indian subcontinent. The novelty of the paper, apart from being the first ever historical analysis of DRTC, lies in its exposition of several non-trivial trivia behind the foundation of DRTC which can inspire futuristic educational institution building in the Indian setting.