The Status of Information Resources Preservation and Conservation in Thai University Libraries

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study the preservation and conservation of information resources in Thai university libraries, a qualitative research.  The samples were 36 administrators and practitioners in the preservation and conservation of information resources in 15 public university libraries using purposive random sampling. The research instruments were semi-structured in-depth interviews. The qualitative data analysis used inductive content analysis.

The results of this research on the preservation of information resources in Thai university libraries 1) Policy all university libraries, there was no direct written policy regarding the preservation of information resources, but there were related policies inserted in the operation, disseminated both internally and externally through various channels such as announcements, websites and quality assurance  2) Regarding information resources, most universities had preserved information resources such as university documents and university archives, rare books, ancient documents / manuscripts, rare documents of historical importance old journals and newspapers and microfilm and 3) Regarding the information resource preservation process, most university libraries had information resource preservation processes, classified by each type of information resource use methods to kill insects and fungi, environmental protection storage on the closed shelf keeping documents in folders and boxes prepare a tool to help search for exhibitions, digitization and create a special collection database. Regarding the conservation of information resources in Thai university libraries, most of them were librarians in the information resource development department, Information Resources Analysis Department Information Resources Management Department and the information resources preservation department of the library or job librarian library archives, it was responsible for providing and collecting academic works for both physical and digital preservation, 2) Regarding the information resources conserved by the university libraries, it was found that most of the conserved information resources were academic works copyrighted by the library, rare books, ancient documents /manuscripts, old journals and newspapers, and microfilm 3) information resource conservation process, restoration of each type of information resource which has different preservation, rare books, ancient documents (manuscripts and Thai notebooks), with minor repairs and major repairs, binding new books, ancient documents were repaired with mulberry paper, each sheet was removed individually to be cleaned with cotton dipped in ethyl alcohol and deep freezing, valuable old journals and newspapers, used the method of outsourcing the binding of books and photographs, used the process to support the collection of ancient photographs directly based on the principles of the archival operation process ,the process of conserving electronic information resources used a stored procedure in the database and technical management of content standards used in the preservation and conservation of information resources in libraries mainly use 1) Document Preservation Standards: PDF and XML; 2) Accessibility Metadata Preservation Standards: Dublin Core Metadata. , MARC, ISAD(G) and Z39.50 3) Archive Document Storage Standard of the National Archives of Thailand 4) NSTDA Digital Media Standard and 5) Information System Security Standard ISO/IEC 27001 (International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission)