THE HAN-NOM HERITAGE IN VIETNAM, ITS IMPACT TO SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

1. THEHAN-NOM HERITAGE IN VIETNAM, ITS IMPACT TO SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Chu Tuyet Lan Library Director The Institute of Han-Nom Studies Mahasarakham, September 11th-12th, 2008

2. CONTENTS I/ The Institute of Han-Nom Studies: Its function and collection 1. Introduction 2. Function 3. Collection II/ How to Widely Provide Han-Nom Knowledge to the Research Community III/ Experiences in creating Han-Nom e-library at the Institute of Han-Nom Studies: • Digitization of Han-Nom books • Digitization of paper rubbings of Han-Nom inscription • Successfully creating full-text database of the Journal of Han-Nom and posted on the INTERNET • Creating bibliographic database of old materials on Hanoi – the Capital of Vietnam Conclusion

3. I/ The Institute of Han-Nom Studies:Its function and collection • IHNS is the largest center in Vietnam devoted to decoding the Hán Nôm heritage. • It performs multiple functions of collecting, preserving, restoring, translating, researching and publishing the Hán Nôm heritage of Vietnam. • It also trains Hán Nôm researchers, organizes seminars on Hán Nôm research, and engages in various exchanges and cooperative activities with institutions of foreign countries.

4. Information Resources • 20,000 books (including Nôm books of the Dao, Tày, and other ethnic groups in Vietnam).

5. Information Resources • More than 54,000 paper rubbings from stone steles, bronze bells, stone gongs and wood plaques (including stele inscriptions left by the Chăm ethnic group) dating from the Lý Dynasty (11th Century) to the Nguyễn Dynasty (20th Century).

6. Information Resources • In addition, the Institute holds more than 20,000 units of wood block printing and 25,000 reference books in Vietnamese, Chinese and other languages.

7. II/ How to Widely Provide Han-Nom Knowledge to the Research Community • Han-Nom collection is the most important resource for those who wants to study Vietnamese country and Vietnamese people in the past, because it is the original source ( the Han-Nom heritage). • To meet the above requirement, we need to create a future international Vietnamese/Han-Nom e-library with concerned institutions and individuals to share e-research materials worldwide and to promote Vietnamese/ Han-Nom scholarship in pre-modern Vietnamese studies. • This would be in response to the growing interest in research and teaching in Han Nom studies and the lack ofconvenientelectronic access to the significant Han Nom resources that are scattered in the national libraries, research institutes, museums, archives, and personal libraries in Vietnam and in other countries.

8. To bring traditional knowledge to the modern society, the Institute of Han-Nom Studies has organized a lot of training courses to equip researchers the needed knowledge to decode the indigenous materials in our collection. Their value will help young people nowadays to learn and keep up the old generation in order to develop the society and its economy. • The best way to provide knowledge to the researchers and young generation is to create digital library.

9. THE E-LIBRARY WILL HAVE THE FOLLOWING FEATURES: • +Contain all recorded knowledge online +Distributed, maintained globally+ Accessible by: +Act as the information resource • any person • in any language • at any time • at any where on earth • via the Internet

10. EXPERIENCES IN CREATING THE HAN NOM E-LIBRARY AT THE INSTITUTE OF HÁN-NÔM STUDIES • Digitization of the Han-Nom books: A single database of digital images was created right from the early 1998 for the most valuable and heavy used Han-Nom materials with the resolution of about 300 DPI, 24 bit color deep, JPG format. • An integrated database has been created since 2004 up to now (using SQL server 2000), linking both the digital images with the bibliographic information and the Vietnamese translation that can be searched via authors, titles and keywords, ... • Until now, all Nom collection, Genealogy and the most precious historical works are digitized.

11. DIGITIZATION OF PAPER RUBBING OF HAN-NOM INSCRIPTION • Depending on the basis of today's knowledge and the current situation, we use the digital camera (NIKON Cool Pix 5.000) together with some other equipments to photo all our rubbings with the funding from E.F.E.O (France). • This is an international cooperative project between Vietnam and France, so far we already published 10 volumes of the stele inscription and plan 44 volumes more in the coming years.

12. CREATING FULL-TEXT ELECTRONIC JOURNAL DELIVERY OF HAN-NOM REVIEW ON THE INTERNET • Tap Chi Han Nom(Han Nom Review) is an important bimonthly scholarly journal of Han Nom studies in Vietnamese with Chinese and English translations of the table of contents. The contents of the journal have been greatly enhanced over the years ranging from scholarly articles, book reviews, exchange of opinions to selected Han Nom works for research reference and news update. http://www.hannom.org.vn/ • So far, we are doing word processing the entire run of the full-text journal and the ongoing issues of the Han Nom Review to provide electronic access to users all over the world. The database of Han Nom Review includes a searchable index by author, title and keywords.

13. Create Han-Nom E-Library • For a long term strategic plan, the Institute of Han-Nom Studies needs to create the research library/the Han-Nom e-library that would benefit all participating parties as well as the general public. • First and foremost we need to do surveys in all libraries/institutions that have Han-Nom resources to build an on-line union catalog by the method of central catalogs as well as to form a library consortium.

14. On Creating Library Consortium 1. Modern information 3. On line 2. Direct delivery 4. To the users

15. The functions of Han-Nom e-library 1. Provide an on-line union catalog of all Han-Nom resources, update and maintain bibliographic access of all users worldwide • Serve as a Vietnamese/Han-Nom Studies Clearinghouseon a continual basis 2. Update and maintain bibliographic access to the ongoing expanded union catalogs of Han-Nom collection 3. Continued maintaining an Internet-based infrastructure for full-text electronic journal delivery of Tap chi Han Nom 4. Provide pedagogical resources for online interactive teaching and learning needs. 5. Doing digitization of the full-text dissertations on the field of Social Sciences and Humanities of all the institutions of VASS 6. Creating bibliographic database connecting the digitized data above

16. Quality will be instead of Quantity • Recently, we try to apply information technology to all library activities, reference services can be implemented via email and telephone during the working hours of the week. • The acquisition of information will not be much problem in the future; quality instead of quantity will be the focus more than ever before.

17. Book Museums Only • We hope when the sources of knowledge are completely represented in digital form, physical libraries could certainly continue to exist, but with advancing digitization, their function is not as important as nowadays, and they would be seen as an archive of printed collections or as book museums only.

18. 8. Conclusion • In the trend of globalization, Vietnam needs to integrate to the world in the Library-Information-Science, library would serve as a motive force for the construction of the nation marked by a rich population, a strong country, an equitable, democratic and civilized society. • Have in hands the most precious indigenous material of Vietnam, the Institute of Han-Nom Studies has been doing research on specialized theoretical issues, editing reference volumes as well as introducing major authors and works in order to meet the demand of socialization of Han-Nom knowledge, serving the construction of advanced Vietnamese culture imbued national identity.

19. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTIONWWW. HANNOM.ORG.VNLanhannom@yahoo.com