Digitizing library activities: What needs to be done now

Lack of machinery and supporting technology

The provincial library currently has over 182 thousand books of all kinds. Among these, many books have been published for more than 80 years.

Ms. Pham Thi Kim Thoa, Deputy Director of the Provincial Library, said: Storing new books is not urgent, but storing old books, especially local books, is necessary and must be done immediately. Although we are fully aware of this, because we do not have computers or scanners, these books are still stored manually in a separate warehouse of the Library. In the long run, this storage method will make the products not intact and difficult to recover.

Not only storage and digitization, at the Provincial Library, the technological infrastructure serving the digital transformation process and changing the way of serving readers is also very limited.

The computer system at the Library has been installed for more than 10 years, most of it is broken and cannot be used.

Previously, with support from the Bill Gates Foundation, the Provincial Library was supported with more than 40 computers to serve the needs of readers to access the Internet and search for documents. To support book searches, the Library also equipped 2 computers with OPAC software installed...

But according to Ms. Thoa, after more than 10 years, the computer system is supported – although it has been repaired every year – but very few computers are still working. Meanwhile, the OPAC software is also malfunctioning, so readers who want to look up books have to go back to the traditional way of flipping through the pages.

Inevitable trend

Digital transformation, digital library development, connection and interconnection of Vietnamese libraries are currently important tasks of libraries mentioned in legal documents, specifically in the 2019 Library Law.

To specify the related contents, on February 11, 2021, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 206/QD-TTg approving the "Digital transformation program of the Library sector to 2025, with a vision to 2030", with the goal of strongly and comprehensively applying information technology, especially digital technology , to improve the operational capacity of libraries and form a modern library network; ensure service provision to meet the needs of users; attract a large number of people to be interested in and use library services, contributing to improving people's knowledge and building a learning society.

To implement the Digital Transformation Program of the Library Sector, the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism signed Decision No. 2175/QD-BVHTTDL dated July 23, 2021 promulgating the Implementation Plan of the "Digital Transformation Program of the Library Sector to 2025, with a vision to 2030" of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, with 10 main tasks and solutions, identifying key tasks in each specific stage.

Digitizing library activities makes storage, access, and service to readers more convenient.

Ms. Pham Thi Kim Thoa, Deputy Director of the Provincial Library, said: From this program, the Tuyen Quang Provincial Library was approved for the digital transformation project of library activities. Up to now, the unit has handed over to the consulting unit 12,500 pages of books, in which priority is given to geographical documents, 300 reader cards, 350 pages of introductory data - news for document scanning.

At the same time, extract full-text data from 1,500 pages of magazines, 300 pages of news data, 50 pages of article data, introductory documents, 11,000 pages of book data, digital documents and 300 pages of reader data.

The provincial library is also converting data from the old software to the new software. At the same time, training on the Tuyen Quang Provincial Digital Library software is being deployed for staff and managers...

In addition, grasping the trend of shifting to reading books on online platforms, the Provincial Library has focused on promoting the application of information technology, bringing newspaper and magazine publications to digital platforms such as: Building a column to introduce new works, information publications on social networking systems...

In particular, on the fanpage "Tuyen Quang Library", every week there is a section introducing new books to a large number of readers on social networks.

According to Ms. Thoa, in the coming time, the Provincial Library will continue to mobilize resources to invest in computers and scanners to make data storage and connection as well as change the way of serving readers in the digital age more convenient and effective.

According to Nguyen Dat (Tuyen Quang Newspaper)

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/so-hoa-hoat-dong-thu-vien-viec-can-lam-ngay-2325290.html