In recent years, the provincial Library of Khanh Hoa has actively held numerous activities to attracted more readers to the library. Thanks to these efforts, the number of readers at the library has increased quite a lot.
In recent years, the provincial Library of Khanh Hoa has actively held numerous activities to attracted more readers to the library. Thanks to these efforts, the number of readers at the library has increased quite a lot.
Bring books to readers
In recent years, the provincial Library has promoted the application of information technology to help the readers to approach books more easily. Nowadays, the readers can look up books through online catalog in stead of card catalog as before. The library has also provided access to the readers to look up books directly in the repository.
In order to attract and retain readers, the provincial Library has added a large number of books to the repository. According to Nguyen Ta, Director of Khanh Hoa Provincial Library, in 2016, 3,928 titles and 10,492 copies were added to the library’s repository, exceeding 49.9% over the plan. In the first nine months of 2017, the library added 2,638 titles and 6,673 copies, bringing the total number of titles and copies to 269,338 and 354,000 respectively.
“Because of the limited funds for new books, we have called for sponsorship and sponsored books from the publishing houses, non-governmental organizations and authors. Thanks to supports of the units and individuals, the library adds around 4,000 out of nearly 11,000 copies of books each year,” said Ta.
Thanks to these activities, the number of readers at the library has increased quite a lot. According to the statistics, in the 2014-2015 period, there were nearly 130,000 visits to the provincial library per year, compared to 80,000 to 100,000 in the 2007-2009 period. The library received the visits of 120,662 readers in 2016 and 91,138 readers in the first nine months of 2017.
|
The library has also collected ideas from the readers to improve the library’s services; organized meetings in order to praise the individuals who have contribution in building up reading culture. Besides, the library has coordinated with Nha Trang University to provide free access to the provincial library to the students who have the university’s library card.
Apart from serving the readers at the provincial library, the library has also circulated books to the libraries in the districts and reading stations at the grass-roots level every two months. At present, the library allocates books to 72 reading stations over the province, including communes’ cultural post offices, communes’ libraries, schools’ libraries, border posts, etc. As reported by Hoang Yen, Deputy Director of Khanh Hoa Provincial Library, from the beginning of 2016 until now, the library has allocated 52,718 copies; offered more than sponsored copies of books to the libraries at the communes, towns, cities, and reading stations.
Promoting book exhibition
In order to promote the reading culture, in recent years, Khanh Hoa Provincial library has often held exhibitions and introduction of books on the occasions of main events and festivals like New Year, Vietnam Book Day, anniversary of Dien Bien Phu Victory, Southern Liberation Day, birth anniversary of Uncle Ho, etc. The library also cooperates with Khanh Hoa University, Naval Academy, and the army units to hold book exhibitions and talk shows.
In the first nine months of 2017, the provincial Library organized five book exhibitions. Reportedly, the library has planed to hold more exchanges and talk shows on books, introduction of new books; promote the application of information technologies and digitization of data in the library. “Digital library has been the trend in the development of library. However, at present, the provincial library has digitalized only 300 books on Khanh Hoa’s geography due to the limited funds and difficulties of copyright. The library proposed that the National Library should digitize books and then share the digitalized books with the province-level libraries,” said Nguyen Ta.
Le Van Hoa, Deputy Director of Khanh Hoa Provincial Department of Culture and Sports highly appreciated the efforts of the provincial Library in attracting more readers to the library and in distributing books to the localities. The book distribution has offered the locals opportunities to read more books; provided more information about the policies of the Party and State to the locals; improved the reading culture of the locals.
Xuan Thanh
Translated by H.N
