Ishvari Corea (4 June 1925 – 14 May 2019) was a Sri Lankan librarian. She served as Chief Librarian of the

Colombo Public Library Colombo Public Library is the largest public library in Sri Lanka, located in Colombo 07, Sri Lanka. History The first public library in the country was the United Service Library, which was established in 1813. It was used exclusively by civil ...

for 27 years.

Biography

Corea was born in Araliyagaha Walauwa in Bandaragama; she was the fourth of five children of Don Bernard Wijesinghe Kannanagara and Beatrice Wijewardana Jayasekara. She attended

Visakha Vidyalaya Visakha Vidyalaya (, ) is a girls' school in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It is a National School managed by the central government providing primary and secondary education. History The school was established in 1917 by Celestina Dias as the Buddhis ...

in Colombo and the

University of Ceylon The University of Ceylon was the only university in Sri Lanka (earlier Ceylon) from 1942 until 1972. It had several constituent campuses at various locations around Sri Lanka. The University of Ceylon Act No. 1 of 1972, replaced it with the Univ ...

, Peradeniya. She graduated in 1949 with a degree in Sinhala. After graduating from university, she taught at Visakha Vidyalaya for a short time, then joined the Colombo Public Library as deputy librarian in 1950. In 1959–60 she studied for a postgraduate qualification from the School of Librarianship and Archives of the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

and the

Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP, pronounced ) is a professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge management, knowledge managers in the United Kingdom. It was established in 20 ...

(formerly the Library Association, UK). In 1961 Corea was appointed Chief Librarian of Colombo Public Library in 1961, a position she held for 27 years. Corea also helped establish the

Sri Lanka Library Association The Sri Lanka Library Association (SLLA) is the main library association of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the ...

, and served as its president.

Publications

* Corea, I. (1975). ''Libraries and people: Colombo Public Library, 1925–1975''. Colombo: Colombo Public Library. * Corea, I. (1978). ''A manual for public libraries in Sri Lanka''. Colombo: Colombo Public Library. * Corea, I. (1993). ''Encyclopaedia of information and library science''. New Delhi: Akashdeep Publishing House.

Personal life

Corea was married to C. V. S. Corea, a homeopathic practitioner.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Corea, Ishvari 1925 births 2019 deaths Sri Lankan librarians 20th-century women librarians Sri Lankan women People from Kalutara District Alumni of the University of Ceylon (Peradeniya) Alumni of the University of London People from British Ceylon