The Creation of Archival Description of Personal Documents of Chao Phraya Abhai Raja Maha Yuttithammathorn (Mom Rajawongse Lop Suthat) at the Court Museum of Thailand and Archives, Office of the Judiciary

Abstract

The objective of this research is to create an archival description of personal documents of Chao Phraya Abhai Raja Maha Yuttithammathorn (Mom Rajawongse Lop Suthat) at the Court Museum of Thailand and Archives, Office of the Judiciary. This study employed documentary research. The population was the personal documents of Chao Phraya Abhai Raja Maha Yuttithammathorn (Mom Rajawongse Lop Suthat) totaling 97 topics consisting of the court administration, general management, conduct of judges, transfer of judges, lawsuits, salary considerations, advancement, complaints and anonymous letters, impeachment, and result of law students’ final exams. Those were important documents of the Thai court history relating to the performance of official duties in the position of ministers. The research instrument was a data recording form at the collection and item/topic level. The analysis of the data was based on a topic-by-item, using the 2nd edition of the General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD (G)). The research findings showed that the creation of archival description of personal documents consisted of 26 information units in 7 areas at the collection level including 1) Reference codes 2) Title 3) Dates 4) Level of description 5) Extent and medium of the unit of description 6) Name of creators 7) Administrative/Biographical history 8) Archival history 9) Immediate source of acquisition or transfer 10) Scope and content 11) Appraisal destruction and Scheduling information 12) Accruals 13) System of arrangement 14) Conditions governing access 15) Conditions governing reproduction 16) Language/Scripts of material 17) Physical characteristics and technical requirements 18) Finding aids 19) Existence and location of originals 20) Existence and location of copies 21) Related units of description 22) Publication note 23) Note area 24) Archivist’s note 25) Rules or conventions and 26) Date(s) of descriptions. At the item/topic level, there were 15 units in 5 areas including 1) Reference codes 2) Title 3) Dates 4) Level of description 5) Extent and medium of the unit of description 6) Scope and content 7) Appraisal destruction and scheduling information 8) Conditions governing access 9) Conditions governing reproduction 10) Language/Scripts of material 11) Physical characteristics and technical requirements 12) Note area 13) Archivist’s note 14) Rules or conventions 15) Dates of descriptions allowed for a comprehensive description of the scope and content of the documents. Users can access the archival description of these personal documents easily, which is useful for reference, and will be a standard for future creation of other archival descriptions.