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TWO WEEKS IN VIETNAM:
MAKING SOME CONTRIBUTIONS TO AND WITNESSING SOME ACHIEVEMENTS OF LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT
by Vinh-The Lam
Head, Cataloguing Department
University of Saskatchewan Libraries
Room 36, Main Library/Murray Building
3 Campus Drive
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
S7N 5A4, Canada
BACKGROUND
I was approached by Mr. Nguyen Hoa of Library of Congress some time in
January for possible contribution to NIT '98 (International Conference on
New Information Technology) to be held in Ha Noi, Vietnam. Nine NITs
have been organized since 1987 in Bangkok, Singapore, Guadalajara,
Budapest, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, Alexandria (Virginia, USA), Latvia and
Pretoria (South Africa). The idea was very appealing to me for two
reasons. First, I have never been back to Vietnam, my native country,
since 1981. Second, at that time I was about to finish an article,
intended for publication in LIBRI, on some suggestions for library
standardization for Vietnam. Therefore, I contacted Dr. Ching-chih Chen,
the principal organizer of NIT '98 and sent her an abstract of the
article, which was approved for presentation. During the next two
months, I made arrangements, through LEAF-VN (The Library and Education
Assistance Foundation for Vietnam) and FSDVN (Foundation for Sustainable
Development in Vietnam), with a number of Vietnamese universities in both
Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City to meet with and talk to their librarians.
The following text is an account of my activities during the two weeks I
spent in Vietnam.
1. ACTIVITIES IN HA NOI
1.1 ARRIVAL:
I left Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada in the afternoon of Saturday March
21st, 1998. After two stop-overs in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada,
and in Hongkong, I arrived at Noi Bai Airport in the afternoon of Monday
March 23rd. I was met at the airport by:
A representative of the Hanoi University of Technology.
(Dai Hoc Bach Khoa Ha Noi).
Mrs. Truong Thi Nhan, the older sister of Dr. Truong Tri Vu,
President of the Foundation for Sustainable Development in
Vietnam. (Vien Phat Trien Ben Vung Viet Nam, Montreal, Canada).
Mr. Nguyen Uyen, Senior Lecturer, Department of Geotechnics,
Hanoi University of Water Resources.
They drove me back to Ha Noi and put me at the Phu Long Hotel at 12 Cau
Go Street, Hanoi.
1.2 NIT'98:
As you have known, the Government of Vietnam had decided to postpone
NIT'98. Dr Ching-chih Chen, principal organizer of the Conference, was
successful in working out some arrangements with the National Library of
Vietnam and a Meeting was held at the National Library where a number of
papers were presented on Tuesday March 24, 1998.
Present at the Meeting were:
From the Vietnamese side:
Mr. Tran Anh Dung, former Vice-Director and newly-appointed
Acting Director of National Library.
Mr. Kieu Van Hot, Vice-Director of National Library.
Mr. Nguyen Huy Chuong, Director, Library and Information
Centre, National University of Ha Noi.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Huyen Dan, Head of Informatic Section,
National Library.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Bac, Vice-Director of the General Science
Library of Ho Chi Minh City.
Ms. Chu Tuyet Lan, Sino-Viet Institute (Vien Han Nom)
All Division, Section Heads of National Library.
Foreign Delegates:
Dr. Ching-chih Chen, Simmons College, Graduate School of
Library and Information Science, Boston, Mass., USA
Dr. Em Claire Knowles, Assistant Dean, Simmons College,
Graduate School of Library and Information Science,Boston,
Mass., USA
Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee, Ohio University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Dr. Wallace Koehler, Internet Consultant, Maryville, Tennessee, USA
Mr. Patrick McGlamery, Map Librarian, University of Connecticut, USA
Dr. Eisuko Naito, Professor & Director of Science Information Research, National Center for Science Information
Systems (NACSIS), Tokyo, Japan
Dr. Jacques Lajoie, Head, Department of Psychology,
University of Quebec, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Ms. Nereida Cross, Australia
Mr. Karl Min Ku, Librarian of the National Assembly, Taiwan
Mr. Vinh-The Lam, Head, Cataloguing Department, University
of Saskatchewan, Canada
Presentations:
1. Dr. Chen gave an opening remark, and then talked about:
The Alexandria Declaration of Principles: A Baseline Document
for Planning Global Information Infrastructure (GII).
2. Vinh-The Lam: Library Development in Vietnam : Urgent Needs for Standardization.
3. Karl Min Ku: New Information Technology Application on Legislatures and Its Libraries Among Asia and Pacific Countries.
4. Dr. Jacques Lajoie: What People Write As Queries in the Web's Search.
5. Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee: Maximizing Information Access and Resource Sharing:
The OhioLINK Experience.
6. Dr. Eisuko Naito: Multi-Lingual IT Standardization.
7. Nereida Cross: New Information Technology Applied to Genocide
Research (CD-ROM on Genocide in Cambodia).
8. Dr. Wallace Koehler: The Librarianship of the Web : Options and
Opportunities : Managing Transitory Materials.
9. Patrick McGlamery: Handheld Computers : Freeing Spatial Information
from the Desktop.
10. Dr. Em Claire Knowles: Educating and Training Students from
Developing Countries to Use New Technologies.
So only 10 papers were presented at the Meeting.
After the opening remark by Dr. Chen, my paper was the first one to be
presented. I spoke first in English to the foreign participants and then
in Vietnamese for the Vietnamese ones.
The proceedings of NIT'98 was already published and distributed at the
Meeting, therefore, in the eyes of NIT'98 sponsors, it's over now.
NIT'98 was considered as already held and proceedings as published.
The Conference Proceedings' bibliographic data:
NIT'98 : 10th International Conference [on] New Information Technology:
for library & information professionals, educational media specialists
& technologists : March 24-26, 1998, Hanoi, Vietnam :proceedings
edited by Ching-chih Chen. West Newton, Mass. MicroUse Information, 1998.
xiv, 288 p. : ill., map, ports. ; 25 cm.
ISBN 0-931555-12-4
ISSN 1053-6973.
It contains 30 papers (Full text + Abstract) and 2 Abstracts.
The Meeting at the National Library of Vietnam lasted all day, with a
one-and-half-hour tour of the Library in the afternoon by Mr. Kieu Van
Hot. Although the Library has some computer equipment, its general
conditions are very poor. Most shelving units are made of wood and very
old, the working areas are very crowded, and dusty. There was some talk
about a new building to be erected soon.
1.3. VISIT AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF WATER RESOURCES
I spent the morning of Wednesday March 25th to visit the Hanoi University
of Water Resources (HUWR - Dai Hoc Thuy Loi).
The University sent a car to Phu Long Hotel to pick me up at 8:30 AM. Mr.
Nguyen Uyen accompanied me in the whole visit.
I was met at HUWR by the Assistant Dean, Prof. Nguyen Cong Man, Head of
International Relations Department, and the Director of the Library.
(This University has sent a few faculty members and graduate students to
study at the University of Saskatchewan. I met Mr. Nguyen Uyen when he
was doing his 6-month fellowship at University of Saskatchewan last year.
Right now there are 3 students from HUWR doing their Master of Science
in Civil Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan). We discussed
about prospects of the University of Saskatchewan Libraries helping HUWR
Library. Prof. Man will be visiting University of Saskatchewan campus
some time this Summer.
After the talk in the Assistant Dean's Office, I was given a tour of the
Library. The Main Library was located on the fifth floor, quite
spacious, but with very old equipment, wooden shelves, a catalogue with
handwritten cards, and closed stacks. Its collection of Russian and
Chinese books was totally outdated and so not heavily used. However it
had a very large room just for textbooks (with, in most cases, hundreds
copies for each title). The Library just started an OPAC with very
limited search options. We also visited the Technical Services of the
Library, where 2 cataloguers still catalogued materials on worksheets.
They still used a very old copy of the BBK (Biblioteka Bibliographia
Klassifisia, the Russian classification system), and I heard the Director
complain on the inadequacy of this classification system for his
Library's highly specialized collection. After the tour of the Main
Library, we came to the Office of the Director, and there I saw one brand
new PC and a new photocopier, not in use yet. After further talk about
possible help from University of Saskatchewan in his Office, the Director walked
Mr. Uyen and me down to a new Reading Room on the ground floor. This
Reading Room was just opened about two months ago. It had been used as a
cafeteria for students, now renovated and capable of sitting about 200
students. They have moved down here current issues of periodicals and a
small part of the book collection, consisting of titles which are being
heavily used by students. The visit ended around noon.
1.4. MEETING AT THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF HA NOI
The next day, Thursday March 26th, in the morning, there was a meeting at
the Conference Room of the National University of Hanoi.
There was a large gathering of people. All foreign delegates were
present, together with a large number of Vietnamese people coming from
the National Library, the Scientific and Technical Information Centre,
the Ministry of Information & Culture (Bo Thong Tin Van Hoa), and the
Ministry of Education and Training (Bo Giao Duc Va Dao Tao).
Mr. Nguyen Huy Chuong, a former graduate student from Simmons College,
gave a presentation on new developments of his Library and Information
Centre, a component of the National University of Ha Noi. He used
multimedia equipment (Power Point, large color monitor, etc.) in his
presentation to introduce to the audience his Centre's Web-based OPAC. At
one point we could even hear "Ho Hue" (Hue Folk Songs - Hue is the old
imperial city, just North of Da Nang) when he introduced the CD-ROM
version of the book on the 300 Old Pagodas in Vietnam. After his
presentation, we broke for coffee, and when the Meeting resumed, one of
his staff presented the Centre's plan to implement a bar coding program
for their collection. I have to admit that I was very impressed by these
new developments at this University. Later I found out that they could
achieve these things because the Ministry of Education and Training had
given them a lot of money, 300,000 USD last year, and 400,000 USD this
year (100,000 USD = 1.3 Billion Dong VN). It was pretty obvious that the
Ministry had intention to have this University's Library and Information
Centre as a show case.
I skipped the afternoon session of this Meeting because of my commitment
at the Hanoi University of Technology (Dai Hoc Back Khoa), Faculty of
Economics and Management (Khoa Kinh Te va Quan Ly).
1.5. PRESENTATION AT THE HANOI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
The University sent a taxi with one staff and Mrs Truong Thi Nhan to pick
me up at Phu Long Hotel at 2:30 PM.
We came to the University campus around 3:00 PM. My presentation was
scheduled to begin at 4:00 PM, so we paid a visit at the Centre for
Environmental Science and Technology (CEST) of the University. I was met
by Dr. Dinh Van Sam, Professor and Director of the Centre.
A few minutes before 4 PM, Dr. Sam walked Mrs. Nhan and me to the
Conference Room of the Faculty of Economics and Management. I was met
there by the Dean, Dr. Tran Van Binh, the Assistant Dean, Dr. Nguyen Dai
Thang, and the former Dean, Dr. La Van Bat.
My presentation was titled "Information Technology in The Market
Economy". It started at 4:30 PM. Only faculty members were present, a
total of 7. The presentation went well and ended around 6:30 PM. I had
given a copy of my paper to the representative of the University at Noi
Bai Airport so that they would have enough time to make copies for all
participants, but, somehow, no copy was made for the faculty members
attending my presentation. I clearly saw that the Dean had that copy
with him during my presentation.
2. ACTIVITIES IN HO CHI MINH CITY
2.1. ARRIVAL:
I left Ha Noi Noi Bai Airport at 2:40 PM Saturday March 28th, and arrived
at Tan Son Nhut Airport in Ho Chi Minh City at 4:40 PM. I was met there,
in addition to my family members and old friends, by Mr. Le Ngoc Oanh,
Director of the Open University Library, Mr. Nguyen Nha, Vice-Rector of
Hung Vuong University, Responsible for Student Affairs and the Library,
and Mr. Nguyen Tuyen, representing Mr. Nguyen Minh Hiep, Director of the
Graduate Library, National University of Ho Chi Minh City (not yet
returned from the United Kingdom).
2.2. PRESENTATION AT THE FEDERATION OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL
ASSOCIATIONS OF HO CHI MINH CITY:
My first official activity in Ho Chi Minh City was at the Federation of
Scientific and Technological Associations of Ho Chi Minh City (Lien Hiep
Cac Hoi Khoa hoc Ky Thuat Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh) at 43 Nguyen Thong
Street, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City. My visit took place at 2:00 PM,
Tuesday March 31st. This Federation had given their assistance in the
distribution of our ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science,
English-Vietnamese edition, in the Summer of 1996.
I was met there by Dr. Huynh Van Hoang, Vice-President and
Secretary-General, and Mr. Vo Khac De, Secretary, of the Federation.
The Federation invited about 40 people from various libraries in the
City. I had not been really prepared to present any paper at this
institution. But the night before, both my friends, Mr. Nguyen Nha and
Mr. Le Ngoc Oanh insisted that I talk about something. So, at the
Meeting at the Federation I gave a presentation which consisted of the
following topics:
- Summary of my paper on standardization presented at the
NIT'98 in Ha Noi.
- Keywords Vs Subject Headings.
- Ownership Vs Accessibility Within North American Academic
Libraries.
2.3. VISITS AT HUNG VUONG UNIVERSITY AND OPEN UNIVERSITY:
The next day, Wednesday April 1, 1998 in the morning, I visited Hung
Vuong University and The Open University.
Hung Vuong University, a private university, with a student population of 3,113, is located in a
5-story building at 736 Nguyen Trai Street, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City. At Hung Vuong University I also had a
meeting with the Rector, Dr. Ngo Gia Hy and the Vice-Rector, Dr. Nguyen Thong Minh.
It also has classrooms in other locations in the City. Its Library has
a book collection of about 4,000 titles in Information Science,
Management, Foreign Languages (English, French, Chinese, Japanese),
Economics, Tourism, and Hospital Administration. The serials collection
includes only 30 titles. It has a staff of 2, 6 PCS, and a photocopier.
Its stacks are semi-open, i.e., students are allowed to go into the
stacks and browse the collection, but they will have to sign out
materials before bringing them into the Reading Room. The Library, in
close cooperation with staff of the Information Science Department, has
just started an OPAC. The OPAC was down during my visit so I did not
have a chance to see how it operated. At Hung Vuong University I also had a
meeting with the Rector, Dr. Ngo Gia Hy and the Vice-Rector, Dr. Nguyen Thong Minh.
The Open University (a semi-public university) Library, located at 97 Vo
Van Tan Street, HCM City, has been closed pending the construction of the
new building of the University on the site of the former Ky Tuc Xa Nu
Sinh Vien Tran Quy Cap (Tran Quy Cap Women Students' Dormitory). The
building is to be finished in one year. Mr. Le Ngoc Oanh, the Libray
Director, took me there to take a look at the construction site. For the
time being, Mr. Oanh and his 2 staff work in a very small room. All
library materials are being kept in bags waiting for the new library to
be opened. They have an OPAC that works quite well with many search
features. I had a chance to test these features and I was quite pleased
with what I saw.
2.4 VISIT AT THE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (DAI HOC SU PHAM)
In the afternoon, I came and talked to the staff of the College of
Education Library. One of my former staff (I was Head of this Library
from 1975 to 1980), Mrs. Ho Thi Minh-Tuong is now Assistant Director of
this Library; I met her at the meeting at the Federation headquarters the
day before, and she insisted that I visit her library, and I just could
not refuse; this meeting was, therefore, totally unplanned.
I was met at the College of Education by the Assistant Dean, Mr. Le Vinh
Quoc, and the Director of the Library. All Section Heads were present, a
total of about 10 people. Again I gave a summary of my presentation on
standardization in Ha Noi. Then I talked about the basic steps in
automation. Since this was a rather small group, many questions were
asked, and the discussion was really good. I was glad that I could
answer all questions asked, especially those by Mr. Le Tu Hy, Vice
Director, Computer Center, College of Education. I had only one regret:
no time to see the Library.
2.5 PRESENTATION AT THE GRADUATE LIBRARY, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI
MINH CITY.
The one-day seminar at the Graduate Library, National University of Ho
Chi Minh City, located at 227 Nguyen Van Cu Street, District 5, Ho Chi
Minh City, was held on Thursday April 2, 1998.
The seminar was held in the big room with multimedia equipment. It was a
big success with about 60 participants, with some people even coming from
Ha Noi and Can Tho.
The topic of my presentation was: "Current Issues in Cataloging". The
following issues were presented at the Seminar:
1. Evolution of the OPAC.
2. Cataloger's Working Tools.
3. Cataloging of INTERNET Resources.
4. Trend in Distribution of Responsibilities Between Librarians and Library Assistants.
5. Outsourcing of Library Technical Services.
6. Problems and New Developments of AACR2.
Although I gave all printouts to Mr. Nguyen Minh Hiep, the Library Director,
two days ahead, none was made for the participants, and they had to take
notes of my presentation, a living proof that they were really
interested. Mr. Nguyen Minh Hiep did not make copies of my paper
probably because of too much photocopy to be done (about 50 pages X 60
participants). Besides I also donated all 28 papers (mostly journal
articles + all papers presented at the Toronto Conference on AACR2) I had
used for my presentation. I officially asked him to make them available
for anyone who is interested to read at his Library. I did a
demonstration of the Classification Plus CD-ROM donated to the Library by
the Modesto Junior College Library, Modesto, California, USA, through its
Librarian, Ms. Le-Huong Pham. Lunch was provided by the Graduate Library
to all participants.
2.6. MEETING WITH VIETNAMESE FRIENDS OF LEAF-VN:
After the Seminar, Mr. Nguyen Nha invited Mr. Nguyen Minh Hiep, Mr. Le
Ngoc Oanh and me to have dinner at his home.
After dinner, I talked to them about new developments of LEAF-VN and
distributed the document from Mrs. Lien-Huong Fiedler. They were all
very enthusiastic about LEAF-VN and promised to provide strong support to
the Foundation's future activities in Vietnam. They also provided me
with information about their libraries, which will be very useful in
LEAF's writing of project proposals in the future.
This official activity put an end to my two-week trip to the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam.
I left Ho Chi Minh City in the morning of Friday April 3rd and arrived in
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada at 10:40 PM the same day.
CONCLUSION
The trip gave me an opportunity to meet not only old friends and former
colleagues still in Vietnam but also to witness real changes that are
happening in the country's library community. Although the level of
library development is not the same in those universities I visited but
their leaders were all willing and ready to move their libraries into
automation. They need and seek our assistance to make it happen. I
believe that we have an obligation to provide them with such assistance.
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