Preserving Personal Documents in the National Archives: A Case Study of Archival Documents of Professor Dr. Sam Pringphuangkaew in the National Health Archives

Abstract

The preservation of personal documents in the national archives has some essential details that need to be presented, both on the principles of provenance or respect des fonds (stored according to the source of the document) and the principle of original order (arranged in accordance with the original order). This is to ensure that the source documents can be kept to the utmost according to the their meanings and historical values. The personal documents have many limitations in maintaining the original order. This is because most personal documents in the National Health Archives have been given to the archives by descendants or keepers, most of the which had not been properly conserved and arranged in accordance with their original orders. Therefore, the collections of personal documents in the National Health Archives emphasizes the principle of provenance, which includes systematically keeping documents pursuant to their sources, focusing on each age range and on the context of work of the individual owner, in order to understand the value of the documents.

This article presents a case study on the management of personal documents of Professor Dr. Sam Pringphuangkaew, who has been respected as a great contributor to the Thai medical profession and public health during the past 100 years. He had actually been a pioneer in rural medicine, a scholar and teacher, an administrator, a researcher, as well as a medical and public health historian. He is a venerable person who has been inspires many succeeding medical doctors. This article is published by the National Health Archives in order to present the documents received, the division of working periods, and the results of document accounting. Thereby, it is recommended that the management of personal documents in the archives is not only to develop the information system, the conservation and the arrangement of documents, including the service system for all interested parties to access archival documents, but it is also involved with academic and research procedure on life history, in order to understand the contexts related to the life history and the social changes that occurred during the lifespan of each individual. By this, the personal documents in the archives will be systematically and effectively managed in accordance with the context of the documents which can be utilized for further study on the documents in other groups.