Vietnam 

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        Directory Information
        History
        Organization
        Buildings and Facilities
        Collections
        Reference and Reader Services

Formal Name:          National Library of Vietnam
Name of Librarian:   Mr. Nguyen The Duc
Address:                  31 Rue Trang Thi Street, 10000 Hanoi, Vietnam
Phone:  (04) 52643

 The National Library, in the capital city, Hanoi, was established by the French in 1919 as the Bibliocheque Centrale of Indochina, which they then ruled. From 1921 until about 1941 it was the legal deposit library and officially received one copy of each publication produced in Indochina. Before 1954 the library was the archival center for Indochinese publications.  After gaining independence from French Colonialism, the library changed its name to the National Library of the North Vietnam.  Only after Vietnam - American War (1975) the library officially became the National Library of Vietnam.

 NLV plays a role of the leading and central library in Vietnam.  It regulates activities of over 100 libraries in whole Vietnam and is the central library in the Vietnamese public library network.

 The library is the National depository of all Vietnamese publications.  According to the legal deposit decree assigned in 1946 by the President, Ho Chi Minh, two copies of each Vietnamese publication should be kept in the archival collection of the NLV.

 The project of renovating the national library is on process.  The library should be rebuilt to become a modern library with modern technical facilities.
 
Collections

 By the 1950s its collections included 150,000 books and 2,300 periodicals. In 1954 the French took a portion of the collection to Saigon and Paris (approximately 50,000 books and 400 periodicals) as they withdrew from Vietnam. Civil war led to intervention by the United States from the early 1960s until the Vietnam War ended in 1976. The Vietnamese began to rebuild the central collections in the 1960s, adding more than 20,000 items.

The National Library has legal deposit rights to 10 copies of all new publications. By the 1970s the Library possessed more than 1,200,000 books and 70,000 bound volumes of periodicals. Besides the growing Vietnamese collection, it has good French, Russian, Chinese, English, and German collections. Special collections include Asian languages, ethnic minority material, maps, engravings, photographs, recordings, and children's books. it produces a national bibliography, bibliographies of periodical and newspaper articles, and lists of recommended reading. The National Library in the former Saigon is now the General Scientific Library of Ho Chi Minh City, attached to the city's cultural office, it holds some 600,000 volumes.

 The library serves over 5000 readers limited to researchers, scientists, professors, business executives, officers and students of the last year in the universities and colleges.  Two reading rooms are offered:  General book reading room, and newspapers and magazines reading room.

 The library is directed by Mr. Nguyen The Duc with assistance of two vice directors, Mr. Tran Anh Dung and Ms. Ha Thu Cuc.