In 4 days, from 6^th to 9^th September 2016, Vietnamese delegation including 04 officials of the National Library of Viet Nam and 02 officials of Binh Duong and Khanh Hoa Provincial Libraries attended The 2^nd session of Project International Network of Emerging Library Innovators – Association of Southeast Asian Nations (INELI – ASEAN). With the goal to continue to build a network of emerging library innovators, those who hold strong vision for the future of the public library system in Southeast Asia, the session brought together more than 60 delegates who are Directors of National Libraries and Presidents of Library Associations, library – information professionals, experienced library staff from 10 CONSAL country members...

In the afternoon of September 5^th, director of the National Library of Viet Nam (NLV) Kieu Thuy Nga received Mr. Vincent Monadé, president of French National Book Centre. Mr. Monadé, who is a member of the French delegation accompanying President Hollande on his visit to Viet Nam, expressed his happiness as this is his first visit to Viet Nam and has a meeting with the NLV. President of French National Book Centre is looking forward to developing cooperation with the NLV through signing an Memorandum of Understanding on the two major fields. The first one is continuing develop the Francophone Book Space at the NLV to be launched on the cross-year Viet Nam – France 2013-2014 occasion, aiming to provide the most French book resources for Viet Nam. The second one is digitalizing French documents of the NLV, enabling broad access to this precious document resource. Speaking at the meeting, Mrs. Kieu Thuy Nga expressed her sincere thanks to cooperation of French National Book Centre over the years and shared that beside the attention on Indochina collections of about 68,500 items in French taken over from the Central Library of Indochina, the NLV also focuses on acquiring new French books to meet its users’ needs. In the field of digitalization, currently....

With the aim to celebrate 105^th Birthday of General Vo Nguyen Giap (25/8/1911-25/8/2016), the National Library of Viet Nam opened a Documentary gallery conveying the following contents: General Vo Nguyen Giap with the resistance against France and the battle of Dien Bien Phu; General Vo Nguyen Giap with the resistance against America and the construction of socialism; General Vo Nguyen Giap – the legendary human being. More than 400 documents of books, newspapers and magazines are displayed mentioning various aspects, fields of the life and career of General which includes many memoirs; chronicles with profound studies about General and are published in newspapers, magazines along with the 1.000 page thick books of many authors and publishers. Particularly, these military-political memoirs, essays of General will help readers better understand about General Vo Nguyen Giap, his personality and great dedication in his fighting career - a national hero being loved and admired by people throughout the country and international friends.

From August 13-19, 2016, the 82^nd annual congress of International Federation of library associations and institutions (IFLA) has taken place in Columbus, Ohio, United States of America with the theme: “Connections. Collaboration. Community”. This congress brought together nearly 4,000 library - information leaders and experts from 145 countries in the world. Right after the congress’s opening ceremony, hundreds of papers were presented in 228 sessions. Topics presented at the congress aimed at building a developed global library network, at the same time, raise the issue of tighter cooperation among every member countries to jointly solve all challenges of the era successfully. In particular, the congress emphasized the tasks and roles of national libraries in the digital age; their contributions to lead the sustainable development goals by implementing library laws, boosting the activities of exploring information resources in the libraries, building digital collections, conducting library marketing, cataloguing, preservation, and cooperation of precious collections sharing, connecting the global information network... in each country.

In order to extensively propagate to readers and public about the location, enormous stature, great historical value of The August Revolution and the Birth of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, the National Library of Viet Nam opened the Documentary Gallery with the theme: Celebrating 71 years of the August Revolution and the National Day of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam (1945 - 2016) with more than 300 documents of books, newspapers and magazines selected according to 4 contents: The Pre-Insurgency Period; The General uprising and The first independence days; President Ho Chi Minh – The Founder and Leader of Viet Nam Revolution; and Viet Nam’s achievements after 71 years of construction and development. The exhibited documentary materials have fully generalized contents, victory values of The 1945 August Revolution which is attached to the historical events, images of famous people, heroes, country songs and achievements attained during the national reconstruction in the past 71 years.

In the afternoon of August 10, 2016, the delegation of Laos Publishing Department and National Library (NLL) headed by Mrs. Bouakhay Phenphachanh - Director of the Publishing Department paid a working visit to the National Library of Viet Nam (NLV). Accompanying the delegation were Mrs. Doan Quynh Dzung – Vice Director of the Library Department, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Viet Nam. To the NLV side, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Dung – Vice Director and representatives of some divisions jointly received the delegation. At the reception, Mrs. Bouakhay expressed her thanks to the sentiment and supports of the NLV for NLL over the years and announced new progresses that they have achieved such as building new modern NLL headquaters; receiving legal deposit publications of all kinds... On this occasion, NLL hoped to restore the material exchange relationship between two libraries and receive the NLV’s  training support for operating and managing modern libraries. The Laos’ side also proposed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation between two libraries as a foundation for implementing related activities in the coming period.

From 28^th – 29^th July, 2016, the 1^st Meeting of Congress of Southeast Asian Librarians (CONSAL) XVII has taken place in Yangon (Myanmar) with the participation of more than 50 delegates and observers from: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Viet Nam, Timor Leste and the host country Myanmar. Vietnamese delegation attending the 1^st Meeting includes 03 delegates from the National Library of Viet Nam and Viet Nam Library Association. After 16times of Congress since establishment and development, CONSAL has truly become one of the most prestigious professional organizations regarding library aspect in the region. In the Meeting, besides annual activities like reports on operational updates from country members, reports on progress of common CONSAL programs and projects, delegates and observers have spent a great amount of time to lively discuss on the arising issues such as: Calendar of operation from each CONSAL country; CONSAL’s strategic vision in the future; Theme and logo of CONSAL XVII; Key goals in the period of 2016-2019 and Proposed activities to celebrate 50^th Anniversary of ASEAN 2017.

In implementation of the task assigned by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to the National Library of Viet Nam (NLV) on the project “Translate, print and train usage of the cataloguing rule Resource Description and Access – RDA 2015 revision”, on July 12, 2016, the NLV hold a meeting to implement the project. At the meeting, on behalf of the agency in charge of the project, Mrs. Kieu Thuy Nga – the NLV’s Director has given an overview of RDA, its application in the world, the process to research and propose the project to translate RDA 2015 by the NLV, plan and timeline of the project during 2016-2017. She aslo emphasized that the aim of the project is towards unifying and standardizing the descriptive cataloguing activity in Vietnamese libraries by applying a new international standard cataloguing rule which is consistent with the development trend of the world libraries and actual situation of Vietnamese libraries in developing towards digital libraries; the goal of the project is to publish the most update and quality version of RDA in Vietnamese language as a tool to ensure the unification of the descriptive cataloguing activity nationwide, contribute to information resources sharing among libraries domestically and internationally, and become a good reference material for those...

To perform the tasks of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MoCST) assigned to the National Library of Vietnam (NLV) to compile the standards on terminology and definitions, on July 8^th 2016, the NLV organized an acceptance of Project constructing National Standard TCVN "Library activities - Terminology and definitions of library products and services" by Ma. Kieu Thuy Nga - Director as Chairman of the Project, Dr. Le Van Viet as Head of Specialized Technical Subcommittee. Attending the acceptance is Mrs. Dinh Nguyen Phuong Thao - Deputy Director of Department of Science, Technology and Environment, MoCST. Library products and services are the outcomes of library activities and have a great significance in bringing the value of library to the users to optimally exploit the benefit of each individual and the whole society. Along with the development of the library, the types of related products and services are also constantly innovative and creative. The construction of TCVN "Library activities - Terminology and definitions of the library products and services" will contribute step-by-step to improve the standardization work, fulfill more library specialized terminology system. The unification in the usage of terminology, definitions of library products and services not only brings effectiveness for academic exchange in the country but also creates favorable conditions for the cooperation process, experience exchange, information resources sharing and international exchange between libraries in Viet Nam with those in ASEAN community and the world.

In the afternoon of July 4, 2016, H.E. Öry Csaba - Hungary’s ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Viet Nam paid a working visit to the National Library of Viet Nam (NLV), Mrs. Kieu Thuy Nga – the NLV’s Director received the delegation. At the meeting, ambassador Öry Csaba appreciated the good cooperative relationship between Viet Nam and Hungary in the last years, especially in the field of culture, and expressed his hope to further promote activities in this field. Regarding library activities, two sides have discussed the possibility of cooperation between the National Library of Viet Nam and National Széchenyi Library (of Hungary) on such fields as: preservation, restoration, digitization and exploration of digital collections; materials exchange; human resource training; organizing conferences, workshops, training courses.... Ambassador Öry Csaba expressed his willingness to serve as a bridge for the two libraries to meet and learn about each other’s work and progress in cooperation in specific areas of strength of the two sides...