LookAtVietnam – Though the country has spent nearly VND18 billion (US$1 million) on libraries nationwide, Ha Giang, Ninh Binh and Hai Duong provinces remain behind in spending for these operations, and locals in these areas are still unfamiliar with the services offered.

A resident in Bac Ha Town in the northern province of Lao Cai reads a magazine in the town library. Many libraries lack patrons due to a dearth of interesting books.

Elsewhere, the amount of capital supplied to libraries in Ninh Binh Province in 2007 was VND115 million ($6,500) out of the total VND11 billion for cultural activities.

The same problem has also affected several other provinces, such as Nam Dinh, Thai Nguyen and Thanh Hoa.

Moreover, many provinces are still borrowing space from other offices to house their libraries. According to Director of Ninh Binh Province’s Library Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha, most provinces’ libraries are placed in the headquarters of local people’s committees.

“People hardly know about them, and even if they do know, they hesitate to visit. As it is, these libraries are only used by staff members of the people’s committees,” she says.

In Hai Duong Province, even though the provincial People’s Committee has invested in building cultural centres equipped with bookshelves in nearly 50 per cent of its districts, a lack of management staff in these libraries has seriously hindered them from opening their doors to the public.

Resources for local libraries are also slim, as is the gathering of relevant books. If a library is provided with books that failed to meet the tastes or needs of local residents, library management boards can do nothing but accept them.

“Books provided to the library in our village are often old, and people are not really interested in them,” says Nguyen Van Vuong, head of Kim Giang Tay Village, Lam Son Commune in Thanh Mien District of Hai Duong Province.

In Tam Diep Township in Ninh Binh Province, only about 10 readers would come into the library each day, due to a dearth of interesting books.

Huu Vinh Commune in Yen Minh District of Ha Giang Province has a rather spacious reading room with a number of books; however, many people still do not know where the library is located.

Nguyen Van Chinh, deputy secretary of the commune’s Party Committee, admits that the library is unattractive to local residents because most of its books are law books.

Meanwhile, Dong Van District in Ha Giang Province is having a language barrier problem.

According to Ly Trung Kien, head of the Culture and Information Unit of the district, 80 per cent of the population are Mong ethnic minority people who speak the Mong language. But the books put in the library are all in Vietnamese.

To solve this problem, staff members at the library have briefly read over the content of the books and have them translated into the Mong language.

“However, this is not a good solution, since when people have questions, the staff still cannot explain because of the language difference,” says Kien.

Nguyen Thi Yen, director of the library in Ha Giang Province, says that libraries are only useful for State employees and students. For the most part, they remain unfamiliar places for local residents.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News