Knowledge organization System and Access of Thai Cultural Knowledge

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore current situation and problems of Thai cultural knowledge organizing system and an access to the Thai cultural knowledge using method of observing actual operations of 5 agencies that manage and provide Thai cultural knowledge services. Interviews of 37 service providers and users using analysis and interview forms were conducted. The study findings indicated that all 5 agencies intended to manage and provide Thai cultural knowledge service using information resource management processes: information resource acquisition, information resource classification and cataloging, and provision of information resources. Thai cultural knowledge system organization can be classified into 2 approaches using 1) international classification systems, such as Library of Congress Classification System (LC) and Dewey Decimal Classification System (DC), and 2) in-house system development for classifying Thai cultural information and knowledge in each agency. All agencies expressed their needs for knowledge organization system for classifying and managing Thai cultural knowledge. The system should be flexible, and easily accessible for users to retrieve the information and knowledge for studying, researching and working, such as Thai cultural heritage knowledge, Thai food, architecture, visual arts and literature. In addition to 5 agencies, users could access Thai cultural knowledge from online databases, search engines, experts, community individuals, and other agencies which collected and provided cultural information. The analysis of dataalso revealed several problems concerning the access to Thai cultural knowledge: lacking Thai cultural collections in the service agencies, unavailability of appropriate system for organizing Thai cultural knowledge, lacking universal standardization of self-developed knowledge organizing system, outdated knowledge resources, unavailability of classification notation for Thai cultural knowledge, inaccessibility to Thai cultural knowledge through the use of key terms or titles leading to searching inconvenience and obtaining unattainable search results.