Community Learning Resources Management Practices in Thai Buddhist Monasteries

Abstract

Before the introduction of modern education in late 19th century, Buddhism monasteries in Thailand had long played the significant role in traditional education. Without the role in today formal education, the temples still serve the need of the nation in reading promotion in rural areas. This study is a part of a research on development of community learning resource management model in monasteries. It aimed to investigate the information management practices in 59 reading resources in temples, and factors affecting the success of the resources according to their opinions. It revealed that 28 temples (47.46%) organized temple libraries, 17 temples provided village reading corners and 4 temples had public libraries. Most abbots agreed that currently, temple are centers of learning activities in the communities, temples are supporters for community education, and should provide information services to attract people and revive the temple role as the centers of the community. Whereas most temples had small number of printed material, they owned palm leaves manuscripts, and community radios. Most temples provided reading services while 50% offered reference, and computer services to the primary group of user who were students and people aged 11-20. The finding of the second part confirmed the precedent studies that the abbots’ characteristics, the accessibility and atmosphere, and the community engagements were prominent factors (> 3.5) for the success of learning resources.