NCSSH of Vietnam
Institute of Social Science Information

Address

Introduction to the Institute
of Social Science Information of Vietnam

• The Institute of Social Science Information is a scientific organization belonging directly to the National Center for Social Sciences and Humanities, one of two largest research centers for basic sciences in Vietnam today. It was founded on May 8th 1975 by the fusion of two previously existing organizations of Vietnam's Committee for Social Sciences (today National Center for Social Sciences and Humanities): The Social Sciences Library and Department of Social Science Information.

• The function of the Institute is to provide information and documents in the social sciences and humanities for state management organizations, scientific research organizations, and scientific researchers and instructors inside and outside the country.

The main tasks of the Institute

• Collecting, acquiring and exchanging, studying and processing, notifying and providing information and documents in the social sciences and humanities originating inside and outside the country.

• Maintaining, preserving, restoring and circulating collected and processed newspapers, periodicals, books and scientific documents.

• Building a suitable reference system of information and progressively computerizing information - library activities.

• Studying theoretical and practical questions on the information - library function, and questions belonging to various areas of the interdisciplinary and regional studies.

• Assuming the training and raising of the professional standards of the information - library personnel in the Institute and in the Center.

• Publishing informational documents in social sciences and humanities and theoretical and professional documents in information - library sciences.

• Assisting the Center in promoting, regulating and coordinating the information - library activities throughout the whole center system.

• Carrying out international cooperation on questions related to the Institute's functions and tasks, with the countries, organizations and individuals in the South-East Asian region and in the world.

  
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  The Institute's director is Professor - Doctor LAI VAN TOAN, (Contact to him by [email protected]) assisted by Deputy director: Doctor VUONG TOAN.

  
  
  

  The Organization of the Institute

  At present the Institute is composed of 14 specialized and professional divisions responsible for every link in the information treating process and information - library services with 105 personnel who are mostly at the five-year university degree and above.
  

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  The Institute's document holdings are formed from the documents of French Far Eastern School's library handed over to the Institute in 1958 and the documents acquired by the Institute since then.
  
  Up to now the Institute's documents depository is composed of over half a million documentary units with 300,000 books, 1200 newspapers and periodical titles in various categories (domestic and foreign, eastern and western, ancient and contemporary), many thousands of manuscripts such as village regulations, deity legends, deification royal decrees etc., 70,000 photofilms and documentary photos on monuments and places of historical, architectural, archeological and ethnographic interests, records of old streets, 4,000 microfilms, and 2,000 maps. A prominent place is given to the collections received from the French Far Eastern School, composed of French (36,000 items), ancient Chinese (33,000 items) and Japanese books (10,000 items) necessary to the research on the Eastern countries' economy, culture and Society. These documents of high scientific value are serving readers inside and outside the country.
  

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  The Institute regularly provides its users with information in the form of printed publications.
  
  The Social Science Information Review is a comprehensive periodical publication of the Institute, issued monthly; from 1979 up to June 1993, the Institute has published 132 issued of the Review with thousands of articles introducing and diffusing domestic and foreign achievements in scientific research on social sciences and humanities.
  
  The Institute also regularly issues additional informational publications on philosophy, sociology, politics, history and regional studies. These publication introduce the most recent research achievements in these disciplines from inside and outside the country. Up to June 1993, 40 of these publications have been issued. Among them are: Humanism of Philosophy and Philosophy of Humanism (1989), Socialism: History and Modernity (1991), History-New Contemporary Trends (1990), Contemporary Economic Questions - Some Western Economic Theories (1992) etc. The Institute also regularly issues volumes of monographic information, focusing on important and urgent questions which many people are interested in. Above 40 volumes in this category have been issued, among them are: The Scientific Technological Revolution and Social Science (1982), Making abstracts of Documents in Social Sciences (1984), Agriculture - Countryside - Farmers in the World (1990), Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam's National Liberation Movement (international cooperative work, 1990, in Russian), Current Debates on Marxism (1991), Humanism in Literature and art (1990), Secrets of World Events 1989-1990 (1991), Jurisdiction Staten and Citizen Society (1991), Theory of the Separation of Powers and the Contemporary bourgeois State (1991, reedited 1992). The Market Economy: Essence and Prospects (1993), Ownership Relation in the Market Economy (1993), Rural Enterprises in China: Present Situations - Problems Prospects (1993), Information Activities and Analytical and Synthetically Processing in Social Science information (1993). The Institute of Social Science Information is also know through its translations of foreign scientific works such us Would the earth be able to feed ten billions of people? (1976) by Clatioman, American Culture and Way of living (1992), Grand failure (1992) by Z. Brzezinski, and Broken empire (1993) by D'Encausse.
  

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  In order to satisfy a timely way various information needs for theoretical research and management activities in the period of renovation and the Open door policy, since mid - 1989, under the title of documents for research, the Institute has issued a new type of fast information in the form of separated information sheets. They are literal translation from foreign scientists' writings treating various and diverse questions in the economic, political, ideological, and cultural areas, published in foreign magazines and newspapers.
  
  We should underline the positive part played by many volumes of Bibliography - Notice listing books, magazines and papers newly acquired by the Institute. These volumes are issued regularly (three or four volumes per year) and sent to the research institutes and organizations for social sciences, the comprehensive libraries in provinces and cities throughout the country. Based on the readjustment of the Village regulations depository, financially assisted by the Japanese TOYOTA foundation, the Institute has issued two volumes of Bibliography of Village Regulations (the edition in Vietnamese: 1991, the edition in Chinese characters and old Vietnamese: 1993).
  

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  Up to now, the Institute's Information publications are utilized at over 3,000 addresses, distributed from the capital to cities and provinces, including research institutes, schools, and production and business establishments.
  
  Besides information publications, the Institute maintains a Comprehensive reading room where everyday readers come to study the documents held in Institute's collections.
  
  Together with the Comprehensive reading room, in the Institute's library, there are specific reading rooms, such as the Reference room, the American studies resource room and the UNESCO Documents on Human Rights room.
  
  International cooperation is continuously developed with increasing effects in many of the Institute's areas of activity: coordinating actions in implementing research and information projects on social sciences and humanities, compiling information publications, exchanging researchers, exchanging experiences of information on social sciences and humanities, training and raising the professional standards of personnel, acquiring equipment and especially, exploiting scientific information, exchanging books, newspapers and magazines. Today, the Institute has regular cooperative and exchange relations with over 80 establishments, organizations, centers and libraries in over 30 countries - including the former Soviet-Union, China, France, the United States, Japan, Great Britain and recently, Canada, India, Australia and Thailand. The Institute attaches much importance to the development of cooperative relationship with countries in South - East Asian region. The Institute is a member of a number of information - library organizations in the region and in the world.
  

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