Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK

The Bodleian Library of Oxford University dates back to the year 1602, although there were libraries at Oxford centuries before that. It has over 12 million items, making it the largest collection in Britain after the British Library. The Bodleian is mainly a reference library. It is named after Thomas Bodley, who in 1598 helped develop the library and donated his own books to it. The Library’s architecture appears in the first two Harry Potter films as the Hogwarts hospital wing and Hogwarts library. Professor Richard Ovenden is the current Bodley’s Librarian, as the director of the Bodleian is called. In its collection are old books with jewelled bindings and original manuscripts by great authors. Since the collections are too large to fit any single building, the Bodleian now consists of a group of buildings, including a book storage facility in the town of Swindon, with 153 miles of shelving capable of holding from 12 to 13 million items. Books from the five-year-old storage facility are much in demand, and last year it processed the one millionth book request. This was an occasion for the special presentation by the Bodley’s Librarian of an exhibition catalogue to the student who requested the milestone book.

Last month, Prince William officially inaugurated the Bodleian’s Weston Library which opened last year, the result of a three-year project by WilkinsonEyre Architects, a London-based firm. The Weston Library is a modern facility for scholarship, research, digitization and conservation. Until recently, the Bodleian did not permit visitors to photocopy library material, to avoid damage. Now researchers may copy most materials from after 1900, and library staff handles copying of items from between 1801 and 1900. The Oxford Digital Library is actively digitizing some of the rarest treasures in the University’s collection. According to its website, the ODL’s main tasks include:

• Providing access to digital resources.
• The central digital conversion of library holdings.
• Developing and setting standards for ODL digital resources.
• Providing robust and sustainable online access for digital resources.
• Building a critical mass of high quality digital materials from the University’s collections to serve scholarship, teaching, and learning by assisting scholars and students from the University and elsewhere in the pursuance of their work.
• Administering the Development Fund to promote the creation of digital content.
• Supporting scholarly and library activities in fundraising for further digitization activities.
• Providing advice and consultancy services for digitization projects.

Thailand and the United Kingdom  

In February, The Nation reported on a Thailand-UK Science and Innovation Partnership exhibition at the British Embassy in Bangkok. As the UK Embassy website noted:

The exhibitions in the Residence garden showcased the achievements of the Thailand-UK collaboration on astronomy and astrophysics, joint rice research, the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, the Mahidol-NSTDA-Imperial College Collaborative Programme, the Thailand-UK development of the 2050 Pathways Calculator to help tackle climate change, and the SCG-Oxford Centre of Excellence for Chemistry. Thailand and the UK have a long-established, close and strong partnership on science and innovation. In January 2015, the Newton UK-Thailand Research and Innovation Partnership Fund was launched to support world class joint research and innovation. The Fund aims to strengthen Thailand’s science and innovation capacity, whilst unlocking wider opportunities for collaboration between UK and Thai institutions, researchers and innovators. The UK and Thailand have committed up to £20 million over five years for science, research and innovation collaboration.

The Newton Fund is a five-year academic collaboration between the UK and 15 partner countries, including Thailand. As its website explains, funding partners in Thailand include the Agricultural Research Development Agency; Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology; National Science and Technology Development Agency; Office of the Higher Education Commission; National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Office; and Thailand Research Fund. The Newton UK-Thailand Research and Innovation Partnership Fund determined priority areas for development:

• Health and life sciences
• Improving environmental resilience and energy security
• Future cities
• Agritech
• Digital, innovation and creativity

Planning ahead.

The 2050 Pathways Calculator is an initiative of the UK Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC). Thailand is among the countries currently considering the development of a comparable calculator. Taking the year 2050 as a target date, the calculator answers basic questions of how a nation’s energy systems may develop over time. Such issues as emissions, energy security, land-use, electricity systems, energy development, and costs are addressed. The resulting information may be of practical use to scientists, policy makers and the general public for decision-making about energy and emissions policies. The goal is to inform the widest number of people about the energy and environmental challenges to best plan for the future.

In March, the British Council resolved to fund a School of Life Sciences at the University of Sussex project to collaborate in teaching and research with Mahidol University. This is part of the UK-Thailand Transnational Education Development Project initiative, in which Thammasat University participates along with seven other Thai research universities. Transnational Education (TNE) is a term developed in the UK higher education world. It refers to going a step further than traditional student and academic exchange. TNE should make it possible for students from one country to earn academic degrees from universities in a different country. As one informed British observer pointed out online, according to the Thai Office of the Higher Education Commission, in 2011 there were 92 TNE programs available in the Two years later, there were 159 of them. Over one-third of these were with China, with the USA offering 29, the UK 16, and Australia and Japan 12. Thai universities have been proactive internationally, including with the UK, in developing dual or double degrees, including at the postgraduate level.

Business opportunities.

In February, it was announced that Singha Estate Public Company Limited, the Thai real estate investment and development company, plans to acquire another hotel chain in Britain with nearly 1,000 guestrooms. Last year, Singha Estate purchased 26 UK hotels with 2,880 rooms for Bt8.8 billion. In turn, the same month, London-based BAE Systems signed a new contract with The Bangkok Dock Company Limited, a Thai shipbuilding company operating as a state enterprise under the oversight of the Royal Thai Navy. BAE will participate in constructing a 90 meter Offshore Patrol Vessel for the Royal Thai Navy.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).