The Hue LRC has begun negotiations to digitize some of the private collections of books, manuscripts, photographs and other materials relating to the history of Hue and its mandarin families. Hue was the capital of Vietnam for 150 years, yet its history has been lost from its public and imperial libraries by disasters, colonialism, and war, so its real history lives in private libraries located in compounds in Hue. These negotiations will take time, so the private collections were unlikely candidates for the digital library the students would create. Yet, they are very good sources for digitizing unique materials relating to Hue. We visited two of these libraries in the company of Mrs. Can of the Hue LRC and several of our students. These libraries are in private villas, and reflect the charm, fragility, and persistence of Hue.
The first library was that of Mr. Nguyen Dac Xuan, a noted Hue scholar and historian, who has written or contributed to over fifty books, mostly on the history of Hue and the Nguyen dynasty. His books include a history of the Duc Duc, Thanh Thai and Duy Tan’s monarchies in Vietnam; a guide to the Citadel in Hue; a history of Thien Mu; a three volume set of anecdotes of the princes and queens of the Nguyen dynasty; and biographies of 19th century courtiers and officials. WorldCat reports most of his books as held by five or fewer libraries, none has been translated from Vietnamese into English, and it is unlikely that all his works are even listed.
On his bookcases on the third floor of the villa are pictures of Nguyen Dac Xuan with Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist. Thich Nhat Hanh lives in Plum Village Monastery in the south of France, which Nguyen Xuan has visited. Also on his bookcase is a picture of the Nam Phuong, the wife of Bao Dai, the last emperor of the Nguyen dynasty in Hue.
Mr. Nguyen Xuan has 50 meters of books, 5,000 photographs, numerous manuscripts, including his own which he has burned onto 10 CDROMs since he does all of his writing on one of the several computers in his house. Many of the print materials are brittle, especially the journals. Preservation is a recognized need.
The second collection is owned by Mr. Nguyen Huu Chau Phan in another family compound in Hue. His father, who was an engineer in water and forestry, collected materials in French, published in France, and Vietnamese. Mr. Nguyen Phan was a professor of Chinese language and Nom, the use of Chinese characters to write the Vietnamese language. It was developed during the period of Chinese rule so that Chinese officials could write Vietnamese names, foods, places and other special terms. Mr. Nguyen Phan?s collection is in two locations, and totals over 10,000 items. He is also the editor of a current journal on Hue history.
Both these libraries are indicative of the private libraries in Hue. The materials are unusual and perhaps unique; preservation is needed to prevent deterioration; the owners have clear ideas about the disposition of their libraries, which does not include the Hue LRC at this time; yet both owners are interested in digitizing the materials. These libraries are the repositories of Hue cultural history and their owners are not going to relinquish the materials without strong assurances of their continued availability.
The digitization process will be difficult. The materials would probably remain on site, yet the scanning will be laborious and slow. The content would be of great interest to a relatively small group of people and scholars. These private libraries are likely to form the core of the digital libraries in many of the cities in Vietnam. The Vietnam library students have taken Digital Libraries and will take Preservation, but the task is formidable.