Libraries & Information in Vietnam (1919-1975)
Colonial
"Pour mieux connaitre l'Indochine: Essai d'une bibliographie" by Paul Boudet 1922
- knowledge
- to be familiar with
- absolutely complete v. too complete and not critical, complex
- creation of something helpful, easy to find, with the goal 'to know', available in all libraries in Indochina & Europe
- cf. ignorance, danger, disinterested, disregard, discredit
"Les Archives et Les Bibliotheques dans l'Indochine" by Paul Boudet 1919
- "light (figurative- understanding, knowledge, wisdom) of a specialist"
- "all orders of knowledge" & "encyclopedic libraries"
Post-colonial: Democratic Republic of Vietnam (N)
"Libraries in the Service of Science and Technology" in Librarians for Social Change 1972 by Nguyen Quang Hy
- need for "knowledge" for the people
- "...storehouse of materials. They are places which store wisdom and circulate knowledge of every aspect of mankind, in this country and abroad; all the knowledge of days past as well as that of today."
- provide materials (of science and technology) as well as ideological education and diffusion of knowledge
- national library= integrated scientific library, 300,000 volumes
- economically viable and efficient
- need: coordination of materials, finding foreign materials
Post-colonial: Republic of Vietnam (S)
"The Starving National Library" "Tìm Hiểu" by Phan Lam Huong 1972
- overflowing, disorderly materials without proper organization capacity (staff, money, technology)
- goal: improve technologies, increase collection of "international newspapers in order to develop the nation" increase services to support readers to the level of other foreign countries (thus, will send libraries to be trained abroad)
So what?
- Information as objects (material, books, collections)
- Economics of the national library - disseminate and preserve information
- Universal standards and recognition
- State legitimacy