Happy New 2008

11 January 2008 OMT Coordinator. The new year was kicked off with a dialogue between the new OMT coordinator, Mr Geoff Manthey aka Regional Programme Advisor, Management and UN Coordination Regional Support team at UNAIDS; and the ESCAP Librarian and KM Officer (Evelyn Domingo-Barker and Manuel Rincon).

A brief summary was given to apprise the new coordinator with the progress of UN Library, Bangkok since its beginnings in September 2007. Among the highlights were: preparation of a UN LIBRARY, BANGKOK blog (you are reading it!); the special section on UN flagship publications at the library; use of trainees to assist in the collection integration.

Other matters touched upon was the need for the “information workers” of the various UN agencies in Bangkok to meet on a face to face basis, to get to know each other and the work being done, and the areas in which possible collaboration could take place. These “workers” could include staff in libraries, publications, public information, knowledge management and websites. A common thread is in information sharing.

Unicef Librarian

10 January 2008. Khun Pongpun Vorapipatkhumtorn takes over the Unicef library functions for the time being. He visited the UN Library, Bangkok regarding Unicef’s collection created on CDS/ISIS. How to set it up, using the programme, and transporting data were covered during the briefing.

9 November 2007 Creating Partnerships With Libraries In Asia: Regional Workshop To Promote Knowledge Sharing.

This was the topic of a workshop held at the UNCC Bangkok, with participants from UNIC offices from 9 countries in the region, and the heads of national libraries from 16 countries. This workshop was organized by the Dag Hammarskjold Library at New York, in cooperation with the UNESCAP Library. (5 to 9 November 2007)

Various topics were discussed to share technologies, innovations and the way forward for the depository libraries to transform themselves into partner libraries. Resource persons from DHL discussed the future of the internal communications strategy (iSeek), StratCom, UN goals and priorities and the role of the depository libraries, Web search, UN documentation. A highlight was a visit to the National Library of Thailand.

30 October 2007 Flagship Publications

A special display area in the Library is now populated with flagship publications produced by UN agencies. FLAGSHIP publications are the outstanding and major outputs in publication format. These normally represent the broad perspective of an issue as it affects a large majority of the world's population, and offer an in-depth examination, perceptions and outlook of various analysts and experts in their respective fields; or are viewed as the authoritative source of various data.

For UN agencies that wish to display their print copies, kindly send four copies (two for display, two for integration into the library collection) to any of the reference assistants at the UNESCAP Library.

The Library also prepares an up to date list of flagship publications in electronic format (URLs). This list is sent to various information centres in the region. (Click here for the latest issue). If you wish to receive the list regularly, or to call to our attention the inclusion of your latest flagship publication, please contact chanchumras@un.org

8 October 2007: Students to the Rescue!

20 students from Silapakorn University from various disciplines have come to spend their school holiday profitably. Part of their tasks with the UNESCAP Library is to do preliminary cataloging and classifying books and other publications to prepare them for integration into the UNESCAP Library collection. We thank the university authorities for their support in this exercise.

21 September 2007: UNFPA

UNESCAP Library staffers Fred and Khun Chi met with Khun Suchai Kosaisaevee and Khun Duangurai Sukhvichai. UNFPA has taken the first step, to weed out their collection and have narrowed down to about 3000 documents, dated from about 2000 to the present. They agree that these could be integrated into the collection and database, using the same platform CDS/ISIS. They are prepared to deliver this set by the end of September. In the meantime space has been allocated to store these. As was agreed earlier, student help has been sought to assist in the broad categorization of these collections. Khun Chi will help in the allocating of duties and jobs.

5 September 2007 UNIAP

Ms. Mehriban Sarifova, of United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (UNIAP), donated their collection of materials to the UNESCAP Library, after weeding out older copies and duplicates. These are now being catalogued and classified by student-trainees.