Selecting and discarding: The image of a country is shaped in libraries
2024-12-03
Pussadee Nonthacumjane works as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Library and Information Sciences, Faculty of Humanities at Chiang Mai University and has been a doctoral student at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science in recent years. She defended her thesis on 22 November, becoming the first doctoral graduate from Thailand and even Southeast Asia at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science.
In her dissertation, Pussadee Nonthacumjane examined a national working group for Thailand’s provincial university libraries whose members work with selecting, digitising, managing, and making Thai local information accessible. She also investigated the organisation of the group and the concept of 'local information' itself. Through interviews and observations, a picture emerges of how local information is shaped.
The working group for local information decides who should be included in the national collections, what is valuable and important, and what is not.
“This, in turn, affects how the local population may perceive and position themselves and others, shaping values and lifestyles in a way that requires deep critical analysis”, said Pussadee Nonthacumjane.
Previously unexplored area
Her research is a unique contribution, providing knowledge to a previously unexplored area. She hopes that the results can be used to develop the understanding of and the management of local information, both in Thailand and internationally.
“Exploring the activities carried out in the group and further on in the provincial university libraries is fundamental to understanding Thai local information and how librarians and information professionals contribute to shaping it as a local and national concern”, said Pussadee Nonthacumjane, adding that such a perspective is needed to critically analyse the impacts of these activities on society.
Was there anything that particularly surprised you?
“Yes, I was surprised to find such widespread contradictions between the group members’ conceptions or ideas about what constitutes local information, and what they actually chose to select and digitise in the libraries’ local information collections in practice. It is also obvious that there is a significant and potentially problematic gap between what in Thailand is described as ‘local information’ and what in international contexts is referred to as ‘Indigenous and local knowledge’ (ILK) and similar concepts, despite obvious similarities. These are also some of the most important findings in my dissertation”, said Pussadee Nonthacumjane.
Local information in Thailand
Local information is viewed as vital for local thai people learning to understand aspects of their locality, such as local history, lifestyles, culture, and traditions. Thailand’s Provincial Universities are given the main responsibility for selecting, digitising and making accessible the nation’s local information resources, a responsibility that in practice is placed within the university libraries. These libraries, in turn, have formed, through their Provincial University Library Network (PULINET), a specific expert group to guide in this task – the Local Information Working Group (LIWG). The LIWG is generally recognised as a pioneer group in Thailand for developing local information resources and local information management.
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The doctoral thesis Local information in Thailand: An activity theory analysis of the Provincial University Library Network’s (PULINET) Local Information Working Group
More research in the area Library and Information Science
Lina Färm
University of Borås (portrait), Pussadee Nonthacumjane (photo from dissertation)