The Chiang Mai University Library has been well aware of its significance of being a Northern Thai Information Center, and this has become one of the main missions of the library. The center was established to be a Northern Thai Information Center providing services and supporting the idea and goal of becoming a learning society within the university and among the members of the northern community.
Since in the fiscal year 2007, the library has established a service of publicizing information about the north of Thailand through computer networks both inside and outside the university. The library has cooperated with the Computer Technology Service Center (now the Information Technology Service Center) in the preparation and publicizing e-Northern Information Multimedia as one of the activities of the Living Library Project which is a step to becoming a learning society. The first year of the project started with the launching of a presentation of “Lanna Food” through /en_lannafood to disseminate, preserve, improve and carry on the cultural identity and local wisdom of Lanna and to support the government’s Food Safety policy through a user friendly multimedia IT service.
In the next fiscal year of 2008, the library and the Information Technology Service Center will collaborate in the project of publicizing the “Lanna Pictures” at http://library.com.ac.th/ntic/en_picturelanna with the objectives as follows:
1.
To collect and present through electronic media the Lanna pictures and descriptions (of Chiang Mai, Lamphun, Mae Hong Son, and Chiang Rai) taken and provided by Mr. Boonserm Satrabhaya.
2.
To compare the pictures of the old and the present Lanna in electronics media.
3.
To collect and publish through the World Wide Web the biography of Boonserm Satrabhaya, a man who deserves to be honored and praised as a history photographer of Lanna and a story teller of the past through his photos.
4.
To publicize the valuable information about northern Thailand for research and studies.
5.
To instill in the northerners the Lanna spirit as well as the pride and awareness of the protection and preservation of their historical and cultural heritages.
The past pictures of Lanna to be presented in fiscal year 2008 will be limited to only the works of Boonserm Satrabhaya, a total of 665 photos taken from 1939-1992 containing photos of the following provinces:
598 photos of Chiang Mai
8 photos of Chiang Rai
2 photos of Lampang
15 photos of Lamphun
20 photos of Mae Hong Son
7 photos of Tak
15 photos of Nan (Tong Lueang or Mlabri tribe)
Besides the pictures of the past, the project had presented the present scenes of the same sites to show the changes of Lanna, especially to Chiang Mai.
“Good pictures…must contain stories”, therefore, the staff and advisory committee of the project realized that the preparation and organization of the descriptive and supporting information would be helpful for research and study so they put an effort in adding as much details as possible from reliable sources and interviews with Mr. Boonserm the photographer, and other experts.
The presentation of these photos is done in data base form for the convenience of the users to search by keywords, topic and the photographer’s name. In the future the responsible staff will add more photos of the Lanna past taken by other photographers.
The Working Group on Living Library Project For Learning Society, the Northern Information Dissemination Section July, 2008
