Collaboration between a Technological University Library and Tenant Firms in a Technology Park in Thailand: New Challenges for Librarianship in a Developing Country.

The main objective of this research was to develop a suitable model for a Thai university library in information provision to tenant firms in the first Thai technology park. Such a model, which was based on Australian data, was fine-tuned to meet local Thai social and economic conditions. The research process investigated many issues with tenants in five Australian technology parks, including information needs, information use, information seeking behavior, information perception, librarian roles, and characteristics of required information services; the library information services that are already offered to tenant firms by Australian university libraries were also evaluated. The proposed Thai model encompassed five major library activities--policies, collection development, information services, staffing, and promotion and marketing. In Australia, there were three sub-sample groups taken into account: company staff members in five Australian technology parks; the technology park managers; and librarians in Australian university libraries that have formal links with the technology parks. In Thailand, the sample group for a preliminary testing of the proposed model comprised top management personnel of King Mongkut's University of Technology, whose technology park is in the process of establishment, and of three university libraries and one public library involved in information provision. The research methodology was structured interviews with checklist questionnaires. (Contains 15 references.) (MES)