I'm a grad student enrolled in an American university while living in Bangkok. I would like to do some research locally, but am intimidated at the thought of just randomly going to local libraries and asking for help, especially since I am not yet fluent in Thai.

 

I am enrolled in a class at Chula that will start in November, but otherwise I have no student status in Thailand. I am an established resident with a yellow tabien baan and pink foreigner ID card if either matters for the purpose of library privileges.

 

I am learning Thai but not yet fluent enough to read native content. Accordingly, my research objectives fall into either of these two categories:

1. English content about Thai history, society, art, culture, etc.

2. Demographic or other data (could be labeled in Thai since data labels should be easy enough to manually translate)

 

Any advice about what libraries might be worth going to? And what to expect from librarians or the overall experience once I'm there?

Chris Baker’s books might be a start. check on Amazon.

 

The Nielson Hayes Library is probably one of the best in Thailand, at least for English language books.

 

https://neilsonhayslibrary.org/

 

As you are a student at Chula, you should be able to use the libraries there:

 

https://www.car.chula.ac.th/

 

Also, the FCC doesn't seem to have a library, but they do have a good bookstore.

 

My wife used to go to the National Library of Thailand when she visited her grandparents in Bangkok.  I don't know if they have any English books though.

 

https://www.nlt.go.th/

Unfortunately, Thailand does not publish much demographic data (compared to some of its neighbours) , expecially data from its population censuses (which seem to be related to national security concerns).  Probably Mahidol University library at the Salaya campus maybe the best source of Thai demographic data, as the Institute of Population and Social Research is located there.

libraries at Chula would have catalogue of past papers from students on demography, some are already digitized, recent ones would definitely have the summary in English