Special library experience in Vietnam

Information Outlook, Dec, 1998 by John D'Amicantonio

During the summer 1998, I had the opportunity to visit and work with staff of a special library in Hanoi, Vietnam. The Southeast Asia Institute library is a small library with holdings of roughly 40,000 volumes. Established in 1973, the institute is a government agency within the National Center for the Social Sciences that supports the research interests of government employees as well as other researchers interested in Southeast Asia. The library is housed among several small offices within one of the institute buildings. Two of the offices provide space for staff to make data entries and keep track of the journal subscriptions housed within the library. One room serves as a reference area.

The library collection provides information related to the culture, history, and geography of each of the nations in Southeast Asia. Although the library has something of an academic focus, its staff clearly meets the definition of "special librarian." The institute library supports the staff of the Southeast Asia Institute. Its users see it as a vital part of their overall mission providing information to all levels of the institute. Even though in a communist regime, most decisions are top down and there is a need for accurate information.

In addition to Director Cao Minh Chong, an historian, the library employs seven full-time staff members who assist visitors to the library as well as perform other functions. Unfortunately, none of the library staff have formal education or training in library science; however, they are eager to make the library a very pleasant place to visit. The employees are selected based on their knowledge of either a Southeast Asian native language, such as Khmer and Tagalog, or one of the so-called colonial languages. These include Dutch, French, and English. Despite the lack of library science education, the library staff are well-educated with strong backgrounds in social sciences and world events. Their language skills are valuable at the institute library since many of the monographs in the collection are written in languages other than Vietnamese. Many of the texts are in English, French, and Chinese. Many of the books are also in Russian since the former USSR was Vietnam's major donor for many years until the demise of the Soviet Union.

The research collection is housed in a locked area of the institute's basement. Unfortunately, this closed stacks policy makes it difficult to browse, but it makes it easier to control use of the collection which seems to be a serious issue in this communist governed country. The extreme heat and humidity typical of Vietnam is also cause for concern since this type of climate advances the deterioration of books. Currently, nothing is being done to preserve the collection.

Internet access is available from the office of the library director, but its use is closely controlled. Library staff are typically the only people permitted to use the Internet within the library and even they must have permission from the director.

The library users from outside the Southeast Asia Institute most typically come from other government agencies and ministries looking for current information on Southeast Asian countries. In addition to government representatives, the institute library is visited by researchers from Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States. Many of the users initially stop in the reference area. The reference collection consists mostly of English language sources including encyclopedias, almanacs, dictionaries, etc. Unfortunately, there is no collection development policy nor any weeding of the collection. As a result, the collection contains some old reference sources that have little value for Southeast Asian researchers. Another problem is that the reference room is far enough away from the research collection to make it difficult for both library staff and the users to gain easy access.

In addition to providing traditional reference services to its users, the library also provides an outstanding interlibrary loan (ILL) service by photocopying and mailing or faxing articles from Vietnamese language journals to institutions worldwide. Two of its biggest ILL customers are the University of California at Berkeley and the Southeast Asia Institute in Singapore.

As implied by its ILL function, the Southeast Asian Library has a substantial journal collection. Many of the serials are in Vietnamese, Chinese, or English. The Asian language journals are obviously of most interest to American universities and libraries. The library staff at the institute is currently working on an indexing project of monumental importance to them. They are indexing all (thousands) of the articles they find in research and scholarly journals that pertain to Vietnam. They are using an indexing software (CDS/ISIS) that was provided to them by UNESCO. The database resides on a computer in the reference area of the library.

During my visit to Vietnam, I had the pleasure of providing basic training in library services to the staff of the institute library. It was a pleasure to work with such an eager group. We also spoke of the advantages of belonging to professional organizations like SLA.