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66th IFLA Council and General
Conference

Jerusalem, Israel, 13-18 August

 
 


Code Number: 095-175(WS)-E
Division Number: III
Professional Group: Mobile Libraries: Workshop
Joint Meeting with: -
Meeting Number: 175
Simultaneous Interpretation: No

Report on mobile library services in Khanh Hoa

Dang Vinh Hue
Library of Khan Hoa Province
Nha Trang, Vietnam


Abstract

Khanh Hoa is a province in the Southernmost part of central Vietnam, a long stretch of land reaching farthest to the East, with a population of a million and has been recognized as one of ten tourist centres of nationwide outstanding importance.

The Khanh Hoa library was established from 1975 and now having 120,000 books. The province is divided into 8 administrative units, which are equivalent to district level - Nha Trang city, Van Ninh, Ninh Hoa, Dien Khanh, Cam Ranh, Khanh Son, Khanh Vinh and Truong Sa archipelago. All of them have libraries. Because of many difficulties, in reality, there are regions in Khanh Hoa, especially in highland, ethnic, remote areas where a great part of population have no reading centres. In 1998, due to assist of ALP/IFLA and Library Department belong to Ministry of Culture & Information Vietnam, Khanh Hoa library carried out the project on rural library services, in which the provincial library is the centre of network, sent fresh books for district libraries weekly and they all rotated to communal libraries. The ALP Project was the key to solving problems, established effective interaction of cooperation and coordination between urban and suburban libraries as a communication channels, provided expenditure on buying 8 videos, 90 video - cassette tapes for district libraries and 8,000 books for communal libraries. The Khanh Hoa government supplied a car for provincial library to rotate books for more 15 rural libraries and community branches. Many sub branches are set up at remote mountain, highland, islands in province.

In 1999, Khanh Hoa provincial library distributed 1,200 library cards, serviced 18,500 library attendance, rotared 49,000 turnover of books, new papers and magazines for rural libraries and community branches


Paper

1. Brief of Khanh Hoa province and Provincial library:

Khanh Hoa is a province in the southernmost part of Vietnamese Centre, stretching farthest to the East, the first area of the country that greets the early sun every day. It shares the same border with the other two provinces, Phu Yen to the North and Ninh Thuan to the South; it stands against the highlands of Lam Dong to the West and faces the Eastern Sea to the East, with a population of over a million, and has been recognized as one of ten tourist centres of nationwide outstanding importance. Nha Trang is the cultural, economical and tourist centre of the province, with an area of 238 sp.km and a population of more than 300,000.

The Khanh Hoa Library was established in 1975 and now has 120,000 books. The province is divided into eight administrative units which are equivalent to district level: Nha Trang city, Van Ninh, Ninh Hoa, Dien Khanh, Khanh Vinh, Khanh Son, Cam Ranh and the Truong Sa archipelago and all of them have libraries. Because of many difficulties, in reality, there are regions in our province, especially in island, ethnic, remote areas where a great part of population has no reading centres.

 

2. ALP/IFLA project on rural library services in Khanh Hoa Province:

In 1998, thanks to the assistance of ALP/IFLA, Library Department belonging to Vietnam Ministry of Culture & Information, Khanh Hoa Library implemented the project on rural library services, and the provincial library, the centre of the network sends fresh books to every district library weekly by car. Since then books have been rotated to the communal libraries. The ALP/IFLA project was really the key to solve a lot of problems, established effective interaction of cooperation and coordination between urban and suburban libraries as communication channels, provided expenditure on buying 8 video sets, 90 video - cassette tapes for district libraries and 8,000 books for communal libraries. The Khanh Hoa library organized a mobile collection with over 6,000 books for rural communities. Nowadays we keep on extending mobile libraries from provincial and district libraries to the communes and villages and establishing new communal and village libraries.

 

3. Activities of model libraries and book stations:

3.1 Library of Dien Lac Commune:

Dien Lac, a western central commune of Dien Khanh district, has an area of 476ha, a population of 7,500; and 1,500 households registrations. Most of them live on agriculture, account for 70 percent (70%). The rest live on small businesses and handicraft. Dien Lac is a favorable place to transact business - culture with the remote mountainous regions of Khanh Vinh district and the low lands.

Dien Lac Library establishment and activity may be effective thanks for political party, local authorities, youth league, agricultural cooperative or peasant's federation, voluntary bodies, cooperation efforts between local authorities and the people, especially by Khanh Hoa provincial library. Every day there are tens of users reading and loaning books and newspapers. The library provides up dated information and knowledge on specific subjects of concerning with the community as well as supplies a source of living, working knowledge and leisure for local readers.

During a working year, Dien Lac Library has attained outputs as follow:

  1. Material facilities:
    Commune has built a 100sq.m wide office divided into two rooms: a collection and a reading room.

  2. Appliances:
    The Khanh Hoa provincial Library supported VND 3 million to furnish tables, chairs and bookcases for Dien Lac Library. Moreover, commune armed a book shelf at the expensive of VND 500,000.

  3. Books and journals:
    Due to the aid of Khanh Hoa Library, up to this time, this communal library gets 809 books, among them 200 books from the mobile collection of provincial library, 150 books of district library, 30 books of legislative bookcase.

  4. Operation:
    The local authorities appointed a librarian, who has to possess qualification, good personal qualities, goodwill to serve community, be creative and innovative.
    Communal library serves about 40 readers every day.

    The library cards were distributed: 270 cards, as following:
    - Workers: 29
    - Local authorities: 28
    - Students: 180
    - Manual laborers: 33

The preliminary results of the Dien Lac Library activities during this time have started to make waves and gained inspiring achievements. The communal library no longer plays the traditional role of stocking reading materials and lending them to the reader but undertakes multiple roles as a community information. cultural and activity centre. The local authorities and the villagers begin to appreciate the roles and the impacts of the library activities in the development of communal cultural life.

Although Dien Lac Library lacks resources, books and journals for local readers, Library of Khanh Hoa province sends books and journals to it every week, so it satisfies the need for local readers.

As known, the local authorities have expected to invest, aim at increasing the quantity of books and journals from 1,500 to 2,000 issues as well as provide audiovisual equipment's and learning materials for their communal library in the next time.

 

3.2 The Tri Nguyen Island Library:

Tri Nguyen island lies on the southeastern part of the Nha Trang city, and is 21 km distant from Cau Da pier, with a population of 3,200 ; 500 household registrations, mainly living on fishing.

On Tri Nguyen island, 70 percent of houses are tiled covered, 80 percent of families own T.V sets, radio- cassette sets and there are welfare institutions such as: medical stations, primary and high schools 516 pupils of primary and 116 ones of high school, kindergartens, stadium, two attractive excursion sites (Tri Nguyen Royal palace and Bai Mieu fishing village). The material life of local villagers has increased but the spiritual life is still far from desire. They lack many things, especially books and journals.

Because of the vital necessity of local villagers and thanks to Khanh Hoa the provincial library's help, Tri Nguyen Library was opened on 20 March 1999 and was supported with bookcases, bookshelves, 200 fixed books and is constantly bringing in learning materials (books, journals, etc. ...) by car and by boat.

Only for a short time, Tri Nguyen Library has distributed 116 library cards for local readers: 55 adults, 61 students and children. This library opens on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Forty to sixty readers are daily served.

The principal target of this library is to limit negative social phenomena, and to improve the means of livelihood and the quality of communal life. In fact the island library has achieved some performance. In 1999, Tri Nguyen Library served 6,875 library attendance's and rotated 12,430 circulation of books.

 

3.3 The Cam Thanh Nam Communah Library:

Cam Thanh Nam is a commune of Cam Ranh district, 55 km away from Nha Trang city, has an area of 1,331 ha, population of 4,736; 928 household registrations, living on agriculture, mainly planting and processing sugarcanes.

In the past, this commune had no reading centre. As the spiritual living of villagers is more and more higher, asking for setting up a lot of political, cultural, and leisure centres, The Cam Thanh Nam Communal Library was opened on 1st July, 1998. When the IFLA/ALP project on rural library services was carried out, thanks to the assistance of Khanh Hoa provincial Library. The local authority provided a reading room with a surface of 40sq.m and facilities such as: tables, chairs, bookcases and bookshelves. Twenty readers were served at the same time. The mobile book storage of Khanh Hoa Library and the Cam Ranh district Library have been constantly served, borrowed and rotated to this communal Library.

In 1999, the Cam Thanli Nam Communal Library distributed 204 reader's cards as follows:

  • Male: 106
  • Female: 98

Among of them:

  • Civil servants and workers: 24
  • Pupils and students: 110
  • Others: 70

Besides, there were 5,759 library attendances and 21,312 circulation of books where rotated.

The Communal library objectives are to implant and promote reading habits and to provide up date knowledge and information on specific subjects of concern to the community. In practice this library has become the attractive place which drew local readers' attention, especially children, pupils and students.

 

3.4 The Library for children of Khanh Vinh district:

Khanh Vinh is a mountainous district of Khanh Hoa province, 40 km away from Nha Trang city, has an area of 922sq.km, with a population of 20,402. Besides the Kinh, there are several minorities such as: the Raglai (70%), The Ede, The Tay, The Nung and The Tring, whose education is still low and have no reading habit.

To aim at increasing the intellectual standard for rural population, in planning to promote reading especially for children, the Library for Children of Khanh Vinh District was opened on 1st June 1998 due to the aid of Khanh Hoa Provincial Library.

Khanh Vinh Library has a reading room with surface of 60sq.m, 6 bookshelves, 12 tables, 2,000 books and a librarian who serves users every day of week. Up to now, this library has distributed 150 reader's cards, as follow:

  • Children: 77%.
  • Children's parents: 13%
  • Others: 10%

Among of them: 20% of ethnic minority residents.
For the six months latter, there were 9,307 library attendances and 1 3.451 circulations of books were rotated.

 

3.5 The Ninh Da Communal Library

Ninh Da is a commune of Ninh Hoa district, 30 km away from Nha Trang city, population of 8,500 with 1,600 household registrations, living on agriculture. Almost 100% of the houses of this commune have electricity from the national power network.

In 1980s, The Ninh Da Communal Library was opened by a librarian, who possessed qualification, devoted to serve community, and was paid nearby 70% of the chief of agricultural cooperative's salary. This library had 4,000 books, operated effectively during few years and was able to meet of local reader's demands.

However, in the first half of 1990s, when the economy of our country started to change into a market one, The Ninh Da Communal Library was not able to operate because of shortage of funds.

After a break of ten years, in appreciation of the roles and the impacts of the library activities in the development of themselves, in addition to bringing into full play the internal strength, and due to the aid of Khanh Hoa Library, The Ninh Da Library was kept on operating in July, 1998. The local authority provided a reading room with a surface of 40sq.m, facilities such as: tables, chairs, bookcases, bookshelves and 2,000 books given by Khanh Hoa Library, and a legislative bookcases. Besides, The Provincial Library has rotated books twice a month for this communal library. Many users, especially children and pupils visit daily their library to read and borrow books and journals.

In 1999, The Ninh Da Communal Library distributed 150 library cards, served 4,200 library attendances, rotated 7,250 circulations of books.

In order to have expenditure to buy books and journals, this communal library has collected VND 2,000 (US$ 0.14) from every reader.

 

4. The activity results of the book station in 1999:

Expanding upon results of the IFLA/ALP project on rural library services in Khanh Hoa province, in 1999, the book stations of Library of Khanh Hoa province has attracted a lot of local readers, especially children and students. The book stations distributed 1,200 reader's cards, served 18,500 library attendances, borrowed 70,569 circulation of books and journals. However, the most important result is that the local habitants begin to get used to reading habit, children usually visit library and have not been naughty, the local authorities and the villagers highly have appreciated library's roles, impacts and contributions in the development of themselves. Thus they have been interested in library activities and contributed to efforts to the noble objective of the library. After preliminary results, we believe that the networking of public library system with mobile services may be strategy for survival and growth of our provincial rural libraries.

 

5. The long- term urgent benefits of model on rotation books and rural library services:

After implementation the ALP/IFLA project on rural library services, we recognized that the model of rotation books to the rural community is measures, which bring a lot of cultural, educative and economic urgent benefits. This is the best measure to establish and promote reading habit of local residents, especially poor countries. The challenges faced by rural libraries in Khanh Hoa province are similar to those faced by rural libraries elsewhere in Vietnam and perhaps in some other poor countries in all over the world. Organizing a book storage for network of public library system with mobile services is both developed manpower and financial resources of local community and economized the state budget but achieved the targets, which were increasing intellectual standard of rural habitants, reducing the gap on cultural enjoyment between rural and urban community. Furthermore, book mobile racks and book boxes, should become convenient and familiar. They can be placed in any suitable places (schools, clubs, communal houses) where books are rotated throughout each village or commune. We always emphasize the importance of mobile libraries. They are used to serve the small rural villages and tribes which can not afford to maintain their own libraries for reasons of economy and management. Mobile library service should be developed as an extension to the static service and be an integral part of rural library system.

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