History
VISION: AIT Library will be the leading organization in building and maintaining information and knowledge resources in the fields of interest to the Asian Institute of Technology with a view to the developing needs of the region and in providing proactive information services with modern information technology applications as well as act as a catalyst in the development of a regional information infrastructure and network.
MISSION: Providing the information resources, library services, physical space, computing facilities, reference assistance, and improving access to the library collection both physical and online to support and enhance learning, teaching, research, outreach activities, and scholarship in the Asian Institute of Technology community as well as reach out to the academic community in the region.
HISTORY
AIT Library was found in 1959 since it was SEATO Graduate School in Chulalongkorn University. In 1977, the Regional Documentation Center (RDC) was established in the AIT Library. The purpose of this information center was to coordinate and optimize all information activities at the institute. After that, the Library was called the Library and Regional Documentation Centers (LRDC) and was changed to Center for Library and Information Resources (CLAIR) in 1997.
In 1979 the Japanese Government generously funded US$4.6 million for the construction of the new Library Building and was officially opened on 21st August 1981. In 2001 the name was changed again to AIT Library as the information Centers moved out of the academic office.
In October 2011, AIT Library was badly affected by the flood and lost many library materials, i.e. books, journals which were kept on the ground floor. Prof. Worsak Kanok-Nukulchai, the 7th President of AIT would like to rebuild AIT Library to be a modern library since the way faculty, researchers and students access and use information is totally different from that of 40 years ago when AIT Library was designed. According to him, libraries are no longer just places to check out a book or to do homework. They are meeting places, media centers, digital repositories and wonders of modern architecture and design. In the renovation plan, all books, print materials, theses and special collections were shelved on the upper floor. The ground floor of the Library would be modernized with massive reading space, a large number of group study room, computer & multimedia stations, meeting rooms and video conference room. The renovation of the damaged Library was started from 18th August 2014 and completed in 2016. The “soft opening” was on 20th January 2017.
According to the AIT Library Modernization Campaign, HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn has accepted the invitation to serve as the Honorary Chair of the International Advisory Committee and graciously granted a personal donation of one million Baht to support the fundraising campaign. HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn inaugurates Modernized AIT Library on 27 April 2018.
Listed below were Directors and Head of the Library
| Dr. Wha-Wei Lee | Director, from 1968-1975 |
| Dr. Jacques Valls | Director, from 1976-1985 |
| Mr. H. Arthur Vespry | Director, from 1985-1993 |
| Dr. Robert D. Stueart | Director, from 1994-1997 |
| Dr. Francis J. Devadason | Director, from 1st August 1998-2003 |
| Mrs. Boontharee Poonchai | Head, from July 2003 – December 2005 |
| Ms. Pranee Kiriyanant | Head, from 2006 – 30 June 2016, Director, from 1st July 2016 – June 2018 |
| Ms. Watcharin Intha | Director, from 1 July 2018 – |
AIT Library’s holdings cover the subject areas relevant to the academic programs and activities of AIT’s three schools, programs and centers. Currently, the library collections consist of 105,059 books, 31,343 items of technical reports, theses, dissertations, 2,519 titles of the non-current print journal, and 975 individual titles of the e-book. The Library also subscribes to 12 online databases/resources from which the e-journal amount to 10,000 titles, and to two e-book packages of which the access totals 23,958 titles.
The Library services include lending, reference, online information retrieval, referral, inter-library loan, bibliography compilation and document delivery service.
For more details, please visit the Library’s home page at http://library.ait.ac.th
