Chiang Mai University Library is well aware of the significance of its being the Northern Thai Information Center and considers it one of its missions. The objective of the Northern Thai Information Center is to provide a service on local information to the public and to encourage a learning society in the university itself as well as the northern society. In the fiscal year 2007, the Library defined the concept of providing information related to the northern region via the computer network both within and outside the university. Therefore, the Library joined the Computer Service Office to prepare and disseminate information on the north in the form of e-Northern Information in a multimedia form. The project was set up as part of the activities to integrate the Living Library for development of a learning society beginning from the fiscal year 2007 onwards.
From the fiscal year 2007, the Library and the Computer Service worked together to prepare and disseminate the information on “Lanna Food” on the website of Chiang Mai University Library at
/en_lannafood to publicize the relevant information and to preserve, continue, improve and spread the cultural uniqueness and folk wisdom of the Lanna people and to promote the Food Safety Policy of the government by making it available for multimedia searching to ensure quickness and a broader scope of dissemination anywhere and anytime. The working team has collected 160 Lanna recipes from 29 experts around Chiang Mai. These recipes make use of local ingredients available in the north and the cooking methods and tips based on the local wisdom. The cooking methods range from kaeng, khua, cho, chio, tam, yam, nueng, namphrik, mop, lap, sa, ok, aep, uk/hum and makdong (pickling and fermenting) as well as khio. Besides these dishes, there are also recipes for desserts and snacks. The information covers recipes, cooking instructions, tips and selection of ingredients along with pictures as well as their health and medicinal benefits.