Attending the seminar were Ms. Doan Quynh Dung – Deputy Director of the Library Department (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism); Ms. Tran Thi Van Anh – Deputy Director of Department of Culture and Sports; representative of the National Library of Vietnam; leaders of the Culture and Information Division, the Center for Culture, Information and Sports, staff of the Library, reading rooms at the grassroots level, the private libraries serving the community of 30 districts and towns in Hanoi; representatives of leaders of Publishing Houses: National Political, Kim Dong, Tan Viet, Women, Nha Nam…
Deputy Director of the Department of Culture and Sports Tran Thi Van Anh speaking at the Seminar.
At the opening the seminar, Director of Hanoi Library Tran Tuan Anh said that currently, Hanoi’s public library system includes the city library, 29/30 district libraries (Nam Tu Liem district has not established a library), 54 commune-level libraries, more than 1,000 grassroots reading rooms have contributed significantly to the construction and development of reading culture in the capital. However, the current situation is that a number of district and commune libraries and grassroots reading rooms still have limitations and weaknesses in library activities, so they cannot promote their functions and tasks, and have not been able to attract attention of the local readers. Besides, the development of information technology in the 4.0 era with many modern electronic devices such as computers, phones, e-readers… also greatly affects the library’s activities in traditional document service. Despite many difficulties, over the years, public libraries have made certain development steps and increasingly asserted their importance in society. The seminar was held with the desire to receive comments around the following issues: Current situation and solutions for the development of reading culture in the locality; operational status at district and commune libraries; solutions to promote public library activities.
At the Seminar, many discussions on effective public library models were shared. Typically, every year, the Library of Tay Ho District constantly adds new books to serve readers. The leader of the Center for Culture, Information and Sports of Tay Ho District said that the library currently has over 25,000 books with a wide variety of subjects, including over 5,000 books for children. Determining that the development of reading culture, building reading habits should start at a young age, school age, in recent years, Tay Ho District Library has focused on investing in facilities, materials and approaches to serving children. The district library has advised to build a beautifully decorated children’s reading corner; coordinated with Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union to organize events and contests to attract union members and young people to participate; cooperated with the Division of Education and Training to organize the Vietnam Book and Reading Culture Day, the Reading Culture Ambassador contest, the art book placement contest, the painting about books contest, writing comments after reading books, the book propaganda contest; District Library staff introduce books to readers by video clips through media channels such as youtube, Center’s fanpage; building a list of book introductions with QR codes, helping readers to look up, listen to audio books or read book introduction content conveniently; promote the transfer of books to residential reading rooms, school libraries…
Image of the seminar.
The grassroots library system has been improving the quality of people’s knowledge in the localities, at the same time making an important contribution to the construction of new rural areas. Binh Vong village library has been a familiar destination for thousands of people in Van Binh commune, Thuong Tin district for many years. This is one of the basic reading rooms that apply the work of “socialization” in library construction and activities. According to Mr. Duong Van Phi – Manager of Binh Vong Village Library, it was established and operated since 1999. The library forms a “network of members” of the elderly in charge of the classifying books, directing readers, lending books everyday… From the original 500 books, up to now, the Library’s books have grown to more than 15,000 books classified by subject. On average, each year the Library receives 3,600 visitors to read, and 600 readers to borrow several thousand books.
Cultural and social officer of Van Phuc ward (Ha Dong district) Nguyen Thi Huyen also said that the reading room at the historical site Van Phuc temple was renovated from the socialization source of Van Phuc People. Currently, the Reading Room has about 1,000 books and 20 different types of newspapers and magazines in various fields. The reading room is open weekdays. Readers coming to the Reading Room are mainly pensioners, the elderly, pupils and students in the ward. In order to continue preserving and developing reading culture in the community, the Party Committee – People’s Committee of Van Phuc Ward assigned the Culture and Information Division to coordinate with the ward Youth Union to develop the project “Reading culture connects history and craft village tourism” with the following contents: Including in the tour to visit Van Phuc silk weaving village the content of craft village culture through book space combined with experience of silk painting at Van Phuc temple relic; organizing games to learn about history and culture through the content of good books available in the Reading Room; decorating the reading room, regularly adding new and diversified books of many fields, prioritizing books for children and learning…
Speaking at the seminar, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture and Sports Tran Thi Van Anh affirmed that the seminar was an opportunity to recognize and re-evaluate library activities. Through enthusiastic and responsible discussions, it was shown that many localities have had methods and experiences in building effective and practical public libraries, which should be well replicated. Along with the interest and initiative of localities, the Department of Culture and Sports and Hanoi Library will support the development of the public library system, propose to build a mechanism to support librarians, award prizes to individuals and organizations that make positive contributions to grassroots library activities… in order to encourage and develop the reading movement in the community, and build a learning society.
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