Abstract:
The Purposes of this research were to study the use of Thai language journals and foreign language journals in the Library and Information Center, National Institute of Development Administration which included the frequency of use, date of publication and the subject fields and to compare the use of Thai language journals with that of foreign language journals in the Library and Information Center. Results of the research can be used as the basis data in considering for selection, acquisition and preservation of both Thai language and foreign language journals in according to the state of use, their needs and the library areas. Survey research method was used in this research. The researcher collected the data through the in-house use and through their circulation records of both Thai language and foreign language journals. The data on the use were collected at 2 intervals, each of which was 18 days long. The samples was 85 titles of Thai language journals and 341 titles of foreign language journals. The findings of the study can be summarized as follow: It was found that 67 and 61 titles of the Thai language journals were used during the first and the second study interval respectively and 71 titles or 83.53 % of the Thai language journals samples were used in both intervals. 195 and 180 titles of the foreign language journals were used during the first and the second study interval respectively and 236 or 69.21 % of the foreign language journals samples were used in both intervals. In both intervals, the most frequently used Thai language journals which frequency 80.88 % of the total use accounted for 32.94 % of the total Thai language journals while the most frequently used foreign language journals which frequency 80.11 % of the total use accounted for 24.93 % of the total foreign language journals. The Spearman Rank-Order Correlation Coefficient for the first 30 most frequently used Thai language journals for both intervals was + 0.63. This meant that the correlation between the most frequently used journals was significantly high. While the coefficient obtained for the foreign language journals was + 0.03 which meant that the correlation between the most frequently used journals was significantly low. For the date of the publication of both most frequently used journals was 0-5 years (age 6 years) and The subject field for most frequently used for both Thai language and foreign language journals was Economics and Commerce. Furthur study on the use of journals in Library and Information Center with longer period of data collection is needed. Other methods of collected data on the use of total journals should be introduced.