ABOUT THE ONLINE BURMA/MYANMAR LIBRARY

The Online Burma/Myanmar Library (“OBL”, “the Library”). is a free, non-commercial, open, multi-source, searchable, online research library focused on Burma/Myanmar. It grew out of the documentation on Burma/Myanmar provided from 1987 to the UN, ILO and other international bodies by the Burma Peace Foundation. It provides information on and for Burma/Myanmar, and holds approximately 50,000 links to documents (of which a quarter are in Burmese) and websites. OBL is by far the largest single source of organised Burma/Myanmar material on the Internet. The material - substantial archives, articles, periodicals, reports, books and videos (and links which lead to many more thousands of documents) - is organised under 100 categories such as Health, Land, Economy, Environment, Law and Constitution, Foreign Relations and History. It is a hybrid library/portal site since approximately half the material is located on our own server - the library function - and half on remote sites, to which OBL makes links - the portal function. OBL does not cover breaking news directly, though we link to the sites of the more than 100 groups and individuals which do.

The Library is an educational entity in that it provides open, non-commercial public access to organised, in-depth information from multiple contemporary and historical sources relating, directly or indirectly, to Burma/Myanmar. We offer a service both to those inside the country who otherwise may have difficulty accessing balanced information as well as to international users - academics, diplomats, journalists, activists and others - interested or engaged in Burma/Myanmar.

Our sources are deliberately varied. For instance, on the Rohingya crisis, we have an archive from 2016 to the present of the articles and news items on “Rakhine” published in the Government daily, “The Global New Light of Myanmar” as well as links to universities, think-tanks, governments, human rights and activist groups, journalists, Rohingya and other online text and video sources, the UN system, China, UK, USA, Bangladesh, Myanmar, India etc.

From mid-2018 we have been creating a searchable, chronological repository of individual Burmese laws, regulations etc. in both English and Burmese. Starting with the current legislature, we are unpacking various sources and working back in time via the first laws introduced into Burma by the British, and from there back to traditional Burmese legislation such as the Dhammathats which in turn were influenced by Buddhist ethics.

We are also starting to focus on material in non-Burmese languages of Burma/Myanmar. We are entering documents in Pwo and S’Gaw Karen in different sections of the Library. As we find people willing and able to do this work, we hope to branch out into the other languages of Burma.”