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9th CDNLAO Meeting: Vietnam Country Report

Update on the National Library of Vietnam

Mr Pham The Khang, Director

Library Administration

1. Libraries of Vietnam are divided into 4 systems (over 20,000 libraries and bookcases).

2. For the last several years, over 1,500 establishments of libraries have been formed, the majority are Cultural Village Bookcases and Bookcases of Commune Cultural Post Offices.

3. Visitors pay much attention to academic libraries and specific libraries such as libraries for the blinds, mobile libraries.

4. Though Vietnam librarianship has made progress, in general Vietnam libraries ar still poor and slowly renovated. A typical new feature incorporated with libraries is a combination of libraries' operation with other activities such as:

- Commune library - School
- Bookcases - Cafe
- Bookcases - Commune Cultural Post-offices
- Commune libraries - Frontier posts

Collection Profile

Total volume of collection at the national level:

- Books: 1,000,000 volumes
- Sinonom books (rare books): 2,700 volumes
- Doctoral thesis: 9,000 volumes
- Periodicals: 8,000 titles.

National bibliographies are monthly and annually published.

National Databases:

- Books: 130,000 records
- Periodicals: 6,000 records
- Periodicals of old periods: 1,700 records
- Thesis: 3,000 records

Infrastructure

Library automation began in the NLV in 1986 with assistance in facilities and staff training from the National Library of Australia. The initial outcome is the 1987 National Bibliography based on database.

In May, 1994, the NLV received investment and equipment from the Ministry of Culture and Information, and became the Information Centre of the whole country, including a local area network (LAN) and a wide area network (WAN).

The LAN is linked up with all divisions in the NLV.

The WAN is connected with 61 provincial libraries to conduct OPAC and Union Catalogue.

Connectivity at the National level is Direct Phone Line.

Service

Reference services: new initiatives are not available, traditional catalogue and OPAC are popular.

Lending services are not conducted, only on-site reading is provided.

Monthly and annual National Bibliographies, bibliographies of local documents are periodically published, also specific bibliographies are produced when required.

Training

Number of librarians in Vietnam is 23,000.

Number of library training schools: 4 colleges and 15 professional librarianship schools.

Copyright

Number of copyright centres: 2 national centers.

Vietnam signed the Treaty on copyright with the United States of America in 1998 and with Switzerland in 2000.


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