Asia
FEATURE
Chutima Sacchanand, LIS professor, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, Thailand, former director of the university library and former president of the Thai Library Association
Images of GGD SD College, India, courtesy of Gurpreet Singh Sohal
the world. However, English proficiency is required for entrance into the university,’ he explained.
Kennedy estimates that roughly 10 per cent of the resources subscribed to at his institution are from Singapore, 15-20 per cent from the Asia-Pacific region (including Singapore) and 80-85 per cent from other parts of the world. Nearly 100 per cent of these are in English, he added.
The language situation can vary within countries too, especially in India. Pralhad Jadhav works in Mumbai as manager – KM & library at Khaitan & Co, Advocates, Solicitors, Notaries, Patent & Trademark Attorneys. His mother tongue is Marathi but he mainly works in English and all the resources he subscribes to, even those originating in India, are in English, he said. He said that language is not a challenge at all for his users.
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‘It is dangerous to generalise across so many diverse countries and cultures’
In Chandigarh, Gurpreet Singh Sohal, librarian at GGD SD College, does not see language as a big challenge either, explaining: ‘Hindi is our mother tongue and we serve the Hindi, Punjabi, English, French, Urdu and Sanskrit languages. In our region, the language barrier is very limited as most of our resources are in English and most of users also seek information in that language.’ The mother tongue of Jessie Satyanesan, chief librarian, Mohandas College of Engineering & Technology, Kerala in India is Malayalam but most work is done in English.
My mother tongue is Thai and the language I mainly work in in my daily life is Thai. The information we obtain is almost all on research conducted in western countries. There is a need for more research information focusing on Asia, about Asia and by Asian scholars. In addition, as library and information science is interdisciplinary in its nature, my information needs are not limited to library and information science resources, but also include resources in other related areas. Another challenge is information access; it is difficult to obtain access to sufficient research material that has been generated in non- western countries or native languages and contexts, especially in Asia. There is a lack of sufficient research materials in the native languages of Asia. As a researcher and professor, my colleagues and I, including my students, find difficulties in accessing and using the information and literature in the field in the native languages of our neighbourhoods and other countries in the region, which have been produced quite a lot in their native languages.
Chutima Sacchanand
FEB/MAR 2012 Research Information
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