Currently, the NLV has regular cooperation relations with 80 libraries of 30 countries, including materials exchange, staff exchange and training, events organization, inter-country cooperation projects, etc. From 2000 the NLV has joined International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and Conference of Southeast Asian Librarians (CONSAL), become an official member of Conference of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL) and Conference of Directors of National Libraries in Asia and Oceania (CDNLAO). In 2007, the NLV joined Francophone Network of National Digital Libraries. Besides active and regular participation in above-mentioned professional organizations, the NLV cooperated with local and foreign organizations to hold international events successfully such as regional professional workshops and conferences, talk shows with foreign speakers, documentary exhibition, Reading Festival Days, etc. The NLV also coordinates with international organization to launch many cooperation programs and projects that benefit not only itself but also the whole Vietnamese library system, especially:
Books Donation Project by The Asia Foundation (U.S.A) for Vietnamese Libraries: The NLV has been selected to be the partner of The Asia Foundation (AF) after launching this project in Vietnam. From 2000 to now, annually 40,000 English books of this program have been delivered to 120 special, academic and public libraries in Vietnam. As well, 16 computers and printers were provided to the NLV and 9 libraries that have English Reading Rooms donated by TAF. During the years of 2005-2007, 3 public diplomatic programs with the value of 120,000 USD were organized in the whole country to promote reading culture, including activities such as TAF Books Exhibitions, storytelling and painting competitions for children, puzzle competitions for students, an essays writing competition to select 3 Vietnamese culture ambassadors to exchange with US students.
CONSAL project of building a regional common database: The NLV has received a scanner Minolta PS7000 and a computer with the total value of 10,000USD to implement the project. The NLV has digitalized 322 English books about Vietnam to contribute to the regional common database.
The project of microfilming books and newspapers published before 1954 under the financial support of Center for Research Libraries: The NLV has received a microfilm reader and a printer with the value of 24,000 USD, film reels and materials of the value of 2,500USD to develop the project.
The project of Force Foundation (the Netherlands): The NLV has received 4 reading machine with visually support and a Braille reading machine, and organized a workshop on publishing Braille books for visually impaired people.
The abridged Dewey Decimal Classification version 14th Translation Project: This project was donated by Atlantic Philanthropies and RMIT University with the value of 100,000USD and was carried out from 2004 to 2006. In 2010, both these organizations continued to finance the NLV 40,000USD to buy a translation software from Pansoft Company and publish DDC22 with the full Vietnamese version within 2010-2012.
The project of translating documents on preservation and organizing training courses of preservation skills for Vietnamese libraries was donated by Ford Foundation with the value of over 40,000 USD. Besides that, the Foundation also donate 7 full scholarship for the NLV staff to improve English at Ho Chi Minh city.
The project cooperated with French partners: Within the scope of the project “French online database for Asia and Pacific” donated by Francophone des Inforoutes, the NLV has processed and founded a database of 23,423 records of documents available in the NLV’s Indochina store. From 2006, the NLV started VALEASE project donated by French Embassy to Vietnam. In this project, French Embassy provided the NLV a big-scale scanner valued 30,000USD. This scanner helped the NLV digitalized 89,512 pages of requested Indochina collection.
The project to improve Natural Sciences Reading Room and On-request reading room financed by Korean Embassy and SK Telecom (Korea): These 2 rooms were equipped new interior, computers, desks and chairs, shelves, television, etc.). The total value of the project is nearly 200,000 USD plus 7,000 Korean books.
The project to deliver an Australian volunteer-expert on paper preservation to the NLV within 2 years donated by VIDA/Australia
The project to digitalize Han – Nom collection: The NLV cooperated with Vietnamese Nom preservation foundation (U.S.A) to digitalize the NLV’s Han – Nom materials and post its full-text database on the NLV’s website to serve users. To implement the project, the NLV was equipped a modern scanner.
The pilot project of improving IT skills for librarians donated by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (U.S.A) and coordinated by The Asia Foundation: The project focused on 3 fields (i) surveying training demands and ability status of 99 libraries and cultural post offices, (ii) organizing 15 training courses for 255 provincial, district and commune librarians and cultural post officers; (iii) organizing 45 Internet Festival Days in Thai Nguyen, Nghe An and Tra Vinh province to promote the usage of Internet and computer in people’s works, study and life (2009-2010).
Cataloguing in Book project with the total value of 80,000USD.
The NLV cooperated with RMIT University to develop the project with the participation of 59/60 Vietnamese publishers. The project has made a great contribution to standardizing professional activities in Vietnam and to reducing costs and saving human resource in technically documents processing for libraries. (2009-2011)
Additionally, the NLV organized successfully some international professional workshops and conferences such as workshops on documents preservation with the participation of US, German and Japanese experts; IFLA/FAIFE pilot workshop on transparency in libraries; documentary exhibitions “Thang Long – Hanoi – a thousand civilizations” in Paris (France) and Vientiane (Lao PDR). The NLV’s most typical international cooperation activity is to host 2 big international events which were 14th Congress of Southeast Asian librarians (CONSAL) for the tenure of 2006-2009 and 17th Conference of Directors of National Libraries of Asia and Oceania (CDNLAO). 14th CONSAL was organized successfully with 3 Executive Board meetings carried out in Hue, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi under the full participation of 10 member countries, with nearly 1,000 delegates attending the General Conference including 330 foreigners from 27 countries. At the same time, the 17th CDNLAO welcame 24 delegates from 16 countries.
In the scope of bilateral cooperation, the NLV signed memorandums of understanding on materials exchange and staff training with different organizations such as Tsukuba University (Japan), National Library of Spain, National Library of Korean, Vietnam Goethe Institute, Asia Foundation (US). In the period of 2000-2010, the NLV has welcome 549 foreign delegations (equivalent to 2062 visitors) to the NLV and sent 136 NLV delegations (263 staff) to be trained and educated overseas. Indian Embassy to Vietnam, National Library of Malaysia, RMIT University (Australia) and Victoria University (New Zealand) are main partners in supporting the NLV to train staff. Besides that, the NLV helped over 20 provincial and municipal librarians to achieve short-time scholarships in India, Singapore, Korea and Malaysia