Iyyanki Venkata Ramanayya - Accomplishments

Accomplishments

Shri Ramanayya never worked as a librarian in the technical sense, but will be remembered for his accomplishments and dedication to the field. An active leader in Library Movement, he founded thousands of public libraries throughout India, and South India in particular. P. Ramachandra Rao describes the Andhra Pradesh library movement;

In the general context of the national library movement, the Andhra library movement was conspicuous and significant, unique and described as “swayambhuv” (self-born) by Iyyanki Venkataramanayya. It was a social movement with popular participation, organized with democratic ideals, more for imbibing political consciousness and spreading literacy rather than for mere organization of reading rooms and systematic libraries.

With unmatched missionary zeal, Shri Iyyanki founded literary journals like Andhra Bharati (1910), the first Telugu illustrated monthly from Machilipatnam, which catered to many generations keeping them informed of Telugu related information. He also founded the "Granthalaya Sarvasvamu" in Telugu in the year 1916 (the first professional journal on Library Science from Vijayawada), as well as the Indian Library Journal in the year 1924 (the first professional journal on Library Science published in English from Vijayawada) at his own cost and boosted the profession.

He helped establishment of Raja Rammohan Library in 1911 in Vijayawada. He started All India Citizens' Library Association in 1919.