In order to promote the habit of reading books and spread the reading culture in the community, over the past time, the Da Nang General Science Library has continuously deployed mobile library truck model at schools, especially those in remote and mountainous areas. Also, the library has added electronic documents, applied information technology, and developed digital libraries in order to better serve the needs of readers.

Pupils of the Hoa Bac Primary School based in Hoa Vang District reading books at the mobile library truck. Photo: X.D

Trucks carrying knowledge

Since 2019, the library-developed mobile library vehicle model has free-of-charge brought useful documents, books and newspapers to pupils, students and people from all walks of life across the city.

Each mobile library truck is equipped with about 3,000 books, computers, software, projectors, televisions, electronic documents, and tablets. Through the kind of vehicles, the library also brings books to school and public libraries.

Deputy Director of the Da Nang General Science Library Vu Thi An said that since early 2023, the mobile library truck has transported Spring newspapers to 6 district libraries and 8 schools. The figure is expected to increase to 15 by late April 2023.

Especially, over the past two months, the mobile library truck model has been deployed at the Hoa Bac Primary School in Hoa Vang District. On the occasion, the Da Nang General Science Library screened movies and organised minigames for nearly 100 children, most of them are ethnic minority pupils.

Mrs. Tran Thi My Dung, who is in charge of library work at the Hoa Bac Primary School, said that most of pupils in remote area found it difficult to access books and newspapers. Therefore, when the mobile library truck arrived at the school site, children and pupils were very excited at reading a variety of books, participating in interesting games and watching movies.

“The mobile library truck not only brings knowledge, but also brings joy and cohesion because there are many activities and collective games, thereby creating solidarity and promoting reading culture in the community" Mrs. Dung said.

Accelerating digital transformation

For the library sector, digital transformation makes an important contribution to the development of reading culture and reading skills towards smart education and digital citizenship generation.

Till date, libraries at grassroots level have been making effort to attract more visitors and readers by improving facilities, and purchasing information technology equipment, books and newspapers.

District-level libraries are equipped with 2-3 computers, one printer, one barcode machine, and qualified internet network in order to look up information.

Mr. Mai Van Hy, a resident of Son Tra District, said that because he intends to study abroad for a master's degree after graduation, he has a need to seek many academic documents. Therefore, he is very interested in the digital library and often borrows documents on the website of the Da Nang General Science Library.

“Digital libraries are very convenient for studying, helping me save time traveling and searching for documents. In my opinion, digital library development is not only a trend but also a suitable transition to meet the needs of readers of different age groups today" Mr. Hy remarked.

Over the past time, the Da Nang General Science Library has paid special attention to promoting the application of information technology in its operations.

Head of the library’s Informatics Department Pham Xuan Thu said that since 2017, the library has been equipped with information technology equipment, from servers, workstations, scanners to management software, e-library, e-book rental contract in order to develop digital library and inter-library.

Till date, the library has digitised 1,503 document names, corresponding to 454,841 pages of scanned documents; as well as linked 796,317 digital documents of all genres, suitable for the main audience of students.

According to recent statistics released by the library, the average number of people accessing digital documents is 100 reads/month.

“In order to support readers in the fastest way, the library is applying chatbot to exchange online between readers and the library. At the same time, the focus is on maintaining communications activities on social network sites to connect and introduce readers to book-related information and activities" Mr. Thu added.

According to Director of the Da Nang General Science Library Le Thi Bich Phuong, under the city’s digital transformation plan in library sector to 2025, with orientation to 2030, the library is conducting a comprehensive digital transformation. In particularly, heed is on digitising geographical documents, applying all modules in library software such as granting reader cards and renewing online books, answering questions, upgrading library website, and applying social networking sites such as Fanpage, and Youtube.

Besides, the library is focusing on promoting projects on digitising documents and resources, plus library information products on the basis of creating new and integrating with existing digital databases.

Importance is attached to digitising geological documents, ancient and rare documents, and collections of documents with special historical, cultural and scientific values, as well as encouraging community and private libraries to digitise library information resources and products.

Reporting by XUAN DUNG - Translating by M.DUNG