In October of 2005, Simmons College received a $1.8 million grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies to train a new generation of Vietnamese librarians for leadership roles. Professor Pat Oyler, who oversees the grant, has been working with Vietnamese librarians for more than 13 years. This report describes a 10 week program of four GSLIS courses, taught by Patrick McGlamery (Simmons GSLIS adjunct teacher) and Terry Plum in Hue, Vietnam from June – August, 2007. Participating were 25 Vietnamese university librarians from four different areas of Vietnam: Can Tho (in the Mekong Delta), Hue, Da Nang, and Thai Nguyen (north of Hanoi). Many of the Vietnamese librarians were as new to Hue as the teachers. This talk discusses teaching LIS in Vietnam, technological determinism, the role of the academic library in supporting university education, and how constructions of the cultural landscape can affect teaching and learning. This lecture was co-sponsored by Simmons International Relations and the GSLIS Research Colloquium

1. Very Hu!: A Report on the
Vietnamese Librarian Project
Terry Plum
Assistant Dean
Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information
Science
Boston, MA
October 2, 2007

14. The Project
• Atlantic Philanthropies
• Chuck Feeney
• Giving while living
• Andrew Carnegie
•!The man who dies rich dies disgracedquot;
• #3.8 billion $ spent by 2006
• #4 billion $ spend by 2020.
• Pat Oyler $ #1.8 million

18. Is this your
%rst visit?

20. Hu!

38. Teaching Digital Information
Services
•New Databases
•AGORA
•HINARI
•OARE
•Blackwell Synergy
•Oxford University Press
•Highwire

39. Teaching Digital Information
Services
•New Databases
•eIFL
•INASP - PERI

45. Teaching Digital Information Services
•Old Questions
• In file 6 (NTIS), how would you create a comprehensive search
for hybrid cars?
• You’re working with medical students who need information on the
effectiveness of physical therapy on TMJ (TemporoMandibular
Joint) problems. Can you point them to some useful articles
published in the last three years? Provide three citations to articles
in English that meet the students’ criteria, and prepare the results in a
useful format.
• You are working at a small college library, and your patron needs to
verify a citation to an article from 1985 in the Journal of Law and
Education on student rights and freedom of speech. He has the full
text of the article but it’s missing the page numbers; he needs the
complete citation for his paper.

46. Teaching Digital Information Services
•New Questions
• You are looking for technical articles on non-point agricultural
pollution in the Mekong Delta region. Use AGORA. First try the
CAB search engine. What did you find? Then try AGRICOLA
through AGORA and after you find a good article, see if it is
available through AGORA. You are looking for the fulltext of the
article.
• Ca Tru is a traditional style of music performance originated in
the north of Vietnam, typically around Ha Noi in the 15th
century. It used to be a favorite musical entertainment of all the
kings and royal officials. Can you help me find an article about
Ca Tru for my music history class?
• I would like to get as much financial (not news) information about
ORNAPAPER BHD as possible. It is a company in Malaysia, which
operates in Vietnam. I think they make cardboard boxes.

47. Teaching Digital Information Services
•Real Life Search
• Enterprise resource planning in Vietnamese higher
education institutions.
• Designing and organizing language activities for effective
accuracy and fluency practice in an English class at Hue
upper secondary schools
• Inheritance patterns of Cucumber Mosaic Virus (CMV) -
resistance to CMV strains in pepper (capsicum)
• Differences between the effects of pre-task planning and
other planning approaches on fluency, complexity and
accuracy in second language acquisition.
• Women ages 15-49 with HIV/AIDS in Vietnam and health
management information systems

57. Very
Hu!

60. Very
Hu!