Backgrounder on Public Access to Information in Thailand Library Landscape Public Library Count: Over 850 (Lerdsuriyakl/ Nimsomboon), 845 (Zabed Ahmed) o Provincial (large) libraries- 73, overseen by provincial Non Formal Education Dept o District (small) libraries- 686 o 79 Chalermrajagumari Public Libraries (medium size) o Subdistrict (small) libraries- 60 o 13 public libraries attached to Bangkok Metroplis Administration, 30 municipal public libraries, 7 public libraries of Srinakorn Bank (none of these are overseen by NFE) Public libraries are located in the district headquarters. To facilitate info access, smaller communities and villages have “village reading centres” (~36,000 throughout the country) or “community learning centres” (8057). (Zabed Ahmed). o Many public libraries also organize mobile and outreach library services to bring books and information to rural population, yet access to info for rural population is still limited. Libraries don’t successfully function as a resource for rural communities because they don’t function as “systematic information centers” (Nimsomboon) o Additionally, library administrators from the NFE Department are usually educators; they lack understanding of library performance; they equate “literacy promotion” to library promotion. Education officers are located in Bangkok so there is little exchange of information between them and librarians. Community libraries can be found throughout Thailand- created by and for the local community. Provide informal education services such as literacy instruction, computer training, and extension activities (Zabed Ahmed). General Information History of Public Libraries (Lerdsuriyakl) o Public libraries stemmed from public reading rooms, originally established in 1916 by the Education Department. o Ministry of Education began expanding quantity and quality of public libraries in 1949. o In 1952, the Ministry of Education partnered with the Ministry of the Interior to make public libraries accessible to more people by building new libraries in “community areas.” o In 1973, the formal status of public libraries was upgraded to “educational unit,” attached to the Adult Education Department. o In 1979, the Department of Non-Formal Education was established, and libraries were moved under its control. o In 1992, the NFE Department passed regulation “to make public libraries be community information centres for promoting community learning and activities, and developing a community learning network.” 1
Lack of public information about health, drug prevention, sex education, parenting, environmental conservation (Nimsomboon)
National Library Organizational structure o 7 branches of national library in Bangkok, 17 in provincial areas
Source: National Library
of Thailand
In 2009, The Ministry of Culture spent Bahts 438 million to build a new building in the National Library compound. This project was managed by the Department of Fine Arts. The Building was proposed to complete by mid-2011 (CONSAL) About 2.6 million items in the collections (CONSAL)
Legal and Budgetary Status of Public Libraries Legal Status (Lerdsuriyakl) o Overseen by Non Formal Education Department o Libraries are tasked by the NFE Dept to be learning centers, places of informal education, including ICT education (general educational opportunities), nonformal education (for those who dropped out of school), as well as the local information center of the community, providing vocational development as well as access to the Internet. o the National Library of Thailand is in the process of drafting the National Library Act. The National Library’s main task will be to collect, provide and preserve the publication and audio-visual materials, as well as to support and promote the publisher or press processing (CONSAL). Challenges faced by public libraries: o The main problems that have contributed to the ineffectiveness and slow development of public library services in rural areas include: a lower level of authority 2
by public libraries; lack of proper planning and management; inadequate budget; lack of professionally trained staff; and lack of library resources (Zabed Ahmed). UNPAN document “Policy of the Government of Thailand” mentions libraries once under “Education, Religion and Cultural Policy”: o “Reform the learning process through the "learner-centered approach", self-education and life-long education by emphasizing the power of creativity, encouraging a love for reading, and providing sufficient community-based libraries, learning centers and educational mediums for public use.” At present there is no Government Library Council; The Thai Library Association is the main coordinating body on matters related to libraries (CONSAL).
Librarian Training and Development Generally librarianship is perceived as a low-status job with dim career prospects (Nimsomboon) Most librarians in rural area lack training, are not professional librarians. (Nimsomboon) Thai Library Association sets qualifications of public librarians (Nimsomboon) o Head librarians in libraries higher than sub-division level must have Master’s + 5 years of experience in library work or Bachelor’s and 10 years experience in library work. If Bachelor’s is in a field other than library science, the librarian must complete a training course in library/information science. o Head librarians @ Subdivision level=Bachelor’s degree in LIS, 5 years experience o Otherwise, the head librarian must either possess a Master’s in LIS, or a Bachelor’s degree+LIS training course as well as 3 years of experience. Changing role of librarians in Thailand: jobs include more cooperating, coordinating to provide information to community, as well as having a pulse of the community’s need and interests. (Nimsomboon) About 2000 professional librarians in Thailand. 1200 are registered with the TLA (CONSAL). Info Access Landscape Ranks 17th in the world in cell phone usage, 23rd in the world in internet users (CIA World Factbook) Broadcast media: 6 terrestrial TV stations in Bangkok broadcast nationally via relay stations - 2 of the networks are owned by the military, the other 4 are government-owned or controlled, leased to private enterprise, and all are required to broadcast government-produced news programs twice a day; multi-channel satellite and cable TV subscription services are available; radio frequencies have been allotted for more than 500 government and commercial radio stations; many small community radio stations operate with low-power transmitters (CIA World Factbook) For detailed stats about how ICT usage has developed in Thailand since its inception, see NECTEC’s 2003 ICT Indicator report. 3
Government ICT Policies National ICT Committee (NICT), established in 1992, chaired by Prime Minister, comprised of members from the private and public sectors, is mandated to develop policies and plans to promote ICT development and utilization in the country. (NECTEC 2002) o The National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC, a semiautonomous government agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment) was assigned to host the secretariat office and to conduct supporting work for the committee. First ICT Policy: IT 2000. Established in 1996 with three goals (NECTEC 2002): o (i) to build an equitable national information infrastructure, o (ii) to invest in people to accelerate the supply of IT manpower and to develop an ITliterate workforce, and o (iii) to achieve good governance through the use of IT in delivering public services and in government administration. IT2000 was generally considered a success, though it was recognized that Thailand still needed to make strides in human resources and the government sector. The following programs were established under the policy (NECTEC 2002): o SchoolNet Thailand, a national school informatization program to empower all schools to access a large pool of information resources using the Internet As of 2002, served 4300 schools nationwide, providing internet access free of charge o Government Information Network (GINet), a government backbone network to facilitate intra- and inter- agencies communication and information exchanges; o Development of legal infrastructure by introducing new laws to support the application of ICT in the country. IT2010/First ICT Master Plan (2002-2006) was the second installment of Thai IT policy. It’s goals were (NECTEC 2002): o 1. To raise the technological capability of the country, as classified by the UNDP Technological Achievement Index from being in the “Dynamic Adopters” group”, to the “Potential Leader” group, by 2010, o 2. To increase proportion of “Knowledge Workers” in the country from 12% (in 2001) to 30%, by 2010, o 3. To increase the share of “Knowledge-Based Industries” within the overall economy to 50% by 2010 o Program was divided into five flagship branches: e-Society- digital divide, quality-of-life, culture, health, public participation e-Education- life-long learning, computer literacy, human resource development, virtual education e-Government- public service via electronic service delivery, employment, legal infrastructure 4
e-Commerce - finance, tourism, IT services e-Industry- e-manufacturing, standardization of IT industry Second ICT Master Plan (2009-2013) was developed to continue of the policy under IT 2010 framework and also to accelerate and fix the drawbacks of the first plan. (ICT Stats) Goals are: o Develop ICT literacy among IT professionals and general population o Strengthen National ICT governance, operational unity o Develop ICT infrastructure o Use of ICT to support good governance o Upgrade competitive capacity of the ICT industry to add value and increase earnings o Use ICT to build sustainable competitiveness for Thai industries
Government Programs Library Programs Mobile floating libraries promote reading and learning to the population living near the nation’s canals and waterways, and also encourages them to think about keeping their rivers, canals, and environment clean with water preservation resources. (Lerdsuriyakl) o The first of such boat libraries was in Bangprok, a community of 500 people. It was started with a Global Environment Facility/Small Grants Programme grant, and has over 300 books and 2 PCs (no internet access), as well as subscriptions to local magazines and newspapers. (Zabed Ahmed). UNESCO began to support community libraries in Thailand in 1993. The project “showed how community libraries can become a dynamic resource centre by…using existing schools and public libraries.” There were further UNESCO projects in the early 2000s uniting communities and gov’t orgs (Zabed Ahmed). Bangkok Metropolis Association (BMA) is building libraries and “book homes” to cover most districts of the city (CONSAL) Ministry of Education established the “3-Dee Library Project” (“Dee” means “good” in Thai.) Goals are to reform libraries to be “good” in three areas: (CONSAL) o 1) Good quality of publications and e-Books o 2) Good atmosphere and environment for promote reading and learning o 3) Good professional librarian Thailand Knowledge Park (TK Park) is a brand new ideal modern library of Thailand. As a lively learning center, this knowledge park provides users with books, music, workshops and multimedia such as a 4D movie theater. Recently TK Park cooperated with the Ministry of Education in developing 9 models of school libraries in 5 regions in Thailand (CONSAL).
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Sources: Kulthorn Lerdsuriyakl. “Public Library in Thailand,” Information Education Promotion Center, Bangkok Thailand. Presented at 65th IFLA Council and General Conference in Bangkok, 1999. http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED441463.pdf Narit Nimsomboon. “The Role of Public Library in Thailand as the Learning Center for Rural Communities.” Thammasat University, 2008 http://www.kc.tsukuba.ac.jp/colloqium/030219a.pdf National Library of Thailand http://www.nlt.go.th/en_organize.htm CIA World Factbook, Thailand https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/th.html NECTEC (National Electronics and Computer Technology Center), “National ICT Policy in Thailand,” 2002, http://nectec.or.th/users/htk/publish/20020302-National-ICT-Policy-v16-word.pdf NECTEC, “ICT Indicators in Thailand,” 2003. http://www.nectec.or.th/2008/pdf/ict_indicators2003.pdf International Seminar on ICT Statistics, “ICT Statistics in Thailand,” 2010 http://unstats.un.org/unsd/economic_stat/ICT-Korea/Documents/Santipaporn_Thailand.pdf S.M. Zabed Ahmed, (2009),"The boat library of Bangprok community in Thailand: An evaluation of its performance and impact", New Library World, Vol. 110 Iss: 11 pp. 498 – 511 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/03074800911007523 UNPAN, “Policy of the Government of Thailand,” 2001. http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan003004.pdf Congress of Southeast Librarians (CONSAL), “Thailand Country Report,” 2011. http://www.consalxv.org/uploaded_files/pdf/eb_meeting/2nd_meeting/normal/country_rep ort_thailand.pdf These backgrounders was prepared as a part of the Beyond Access Initiative and attempt to provide an accurate picture of the state of access to libraries, ICT venues, and other sources of information in the states they profile. After establishing the historical background of these venues, special attention is paid to innovative library and ICT programs and partnerships that seek to break down the unique barriers to access faced by each country. The backgrounders used the most recent information available, encompassing academic and government reports, news articles, and commentary from bloggers and other online resources.
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