From
WIRE REPORTS
More
than 12 percent of Vietnamese universities and colleges do not have libraries, while
many existing school libraries are poorly equipped, outdated and neglected by lecturers
and students.
Recent
reports by a news website quoted a report by the Education Ministry as saying that
87.8 percent of 196 surveyed universities and colleges had traditional libraries.
But
the ministry said that the real rate might be far lower as fewer than half of all
universities and colleges were surveyed, according to reports on the website.
The
ministry’s report said many available libraries are outdated.
The
survey pointed out that some 38.9 percent of schools surveyed had libraries that
met national or international standards. Seventy-seven of the surveyed schools,
or 39.7 percent of all surveyed, have e-libraries. The ministry report called the
figure “too low.”
A
representative of the Ha Noi University of Mining and Geology said the school did
not have enough books and that the ones it did have were out of date.
Leaders
at the Ha Noi University of Agriculture also said that even though their institution
was a major school in the capital city, the university did not have an e-library.
They said the school will ask for money from the Education Ministry’s budget to
build one in 2015.
According
to the news website, at least three major universities in Ha Noi – the Academy of
Journalism and Communication, the University of Education and the University of
Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH) – all lack the funding to improve their libraries.
Do
Thuy Hang, chief of the journalism academy’s library and information division, said
every year the library is given some $21,380, which was “too little.” Thus, she
said, the school bought books in “limited quantities.”
The
school has more than 1,500 students, but every year the library can only afford
50 new books for each textbook title, 10 to 20 for each specialized title, and one
for a dictionary, according to the
report.
Hang
said the library’s Internet room was recently equipped with tens of computers, but
it might be closed due to the lack of visitors. Titles there cannot be looked up
electronically, she said.
The
same situation was reported at University of Education, which is given $14,400
to $16,400 a year to update its library, which now has some 90,000 titles.
“With
this kind of money, how can the library be developed to meet the demand of lecturers
and students?” said Nguyen Thi Hong Trang, vice director of the university’s library
center.
Meanwhile,
Ngo Thi Hong, chief of the USSH information and library office, said the libraries’
100,000 titles were not enough to satisfy the demand of thousands of students.
She
also said the library is not big enough to keep all the books, let alone all the
students who want to study there during the examination seasons.
But
due to its limited resources and research materials, few students and lecturers
visit the library regularly, according to Hong.
Hong
also said lecturers rarely visit the education university’s library due to its limited
materials.
In
fact, many scholars who earned degrees overseas said that they had turned to foreign
sources.
For
instance, Thanh Hai, who earned a doctorate in food chemistry in France, said she
never visited libraries in Viet Nam because she could not find the materials she
needed there.
Nguyen
Duc Minh, who completed his doctorate thesis in biology at Sweden’s Lund University,
said Vietnamese libraries had only basic materials that were “barely”
able to meet even a few of students’ demands.
He
said lecturers usually do not go to local libraries, because they fail to provide
them with the world’s latest scientific articles and books, adding that it was even
hard to find new Vietnamese journals.
“Students
are at a big disadvantage because no one teaches them how to access the world’s
huge treasure of knowledge that is updated every day. Meanwhile, most of what they
learn at school is dated back to 20 to 30 years ago,” Hai said.
