the Vietnamese collection at southern Illinois university at carbondale

thomas l. kilpatrick
research and reference center coordinator
southern illinois university at carbondale
carbondale, illinois

Morris Library on the campus of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale holds the largest collection of Vietnamese materials in the state of Illinois, and one of the more significant Vietnamese collections in the nation. The collection was established to support the work of the Center for Vietnamese Studies, which existed at SIUC during the 1960s and 1970s. SIUC first became involved in Vietnam in 1961, when two teaching and research programs sponsored by the Agency for International Development (AID) of the U.S. Department of State were established. These two programs, one in vocational education and the other in elementary education, provided funding for consulting and advisory services in Vietnam and the education of Vietnamese students at SIUC. In the late 1960s, a second grant led to the establishment of the Center for Vietnamese Studies and cooperation between the center and Morris Library in collecting materials in the Vietnamese language. Today, funding has ceased and the center has been disbanded, but the library materials collected during that period remain, and some of the original center staff continue to carry on their work on a part-time basis.

Morris Library's collection of Vietnamese materials grew steadily from the establishment of the Center for Vietnamese Studies to the defeat of the Saigon Vietnamese government by the forces of the Vietnamese People's Republic in 1975. With the fall of the Saigon government, communications ended between Morris Library and its Vietnamese suppliers, and few if any materials have been acquired since that time. However, the same coup which severed communications and caused the demise of Morris Library's acquisition of Vietnamese materials resulted in increased interest and demands on the collection, for thousands of South Vietnamese refugees came to America, and many of them sought familiar reading materials through the libraries in their adopted communities. Most of these libraries held no materials in Vietnamese, so they turned to interlibrary loan as a means of meeting these new demands, and SIUC's collection was discovered to be a valuable, easily accessible source of material.

188

Morris Library's Vietnamese collection contains over 4,000 items, including books, serials, maps, microforms, and records. The major portion of the collection consists of materials in Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese, although some items in Cambodian, Laotian, Indonesian, and Chinese are also included, as well as materials about Vietnam written in French and English. Materials on a variety of sublets were collected and added during the collection building period. Morris Library's collection is strong in Vietnamese literature, but also includes materials on history, philosophy, music, cooking, education, and other topics.

Almost all of the Vietnamese materials in Morris Library have been cataloged and are available in the stacks for general circulation. Cataloging done for Vietnamese materials prior to 1974 was submitted to the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Union Catalog. Cataloging performed after 1974 has been input into OCLC and is included in the Library Computer System (LCS), a statewide circulation database in Illinois, which is accessible by twenty-two academic libraries in the state, all of the ILLINET Systems Library Headquarters, and the ILLINET Research and Reference Centers. A retrospective conversion project currently under way at Morris Library will eventually make bibliographic information available on-line through OCLC and LCS for all Vietnamese materials in the collection. Between 1971 and 1974 a series of six accessions lists of Morris Library's Vietnamese holdings was published by the Center for Vietnamese Studies. Except for reference copies held by Morris Library, the supply of these publications has long been exhausted, but a few microfiche copies are available for loan from the Interlibrary Loan Department of Morris Library.

One group of materials that has not been cataloged is a small collection of about 100 titles of American classics translated into Vietnamese. As these volumes were received their value to the collection was deemed marginal, so the titles were stored and never processed. However, the large influx of Vietnamese refugees into the United States in 1975 created demands for materials that would aid the immigrants in understanding American life and assimilating American culture. Such titles as Jessamin West's Friendly Persuasion, John F. Kennedy's Portraits in Courage, and Marjorie Kennan Rawlings' The Yearling seemed appropriate for the purpose. In order to accommodate interlibrary loan requests for that type of material, the books were moved to the interlibrary loan department and are circulated through ILL when requested, although they have never been cataloged, and there are no immediate plans to do so.

Although officially called the Vietnamese and South East Asian Collection, the Vietnamese materials in SIUC's Morris Library have been integrated into the general library, and therefore do not constitute a separate and readily identifiable collection. General policies regulating the circulation of materials from Morris Library apply also to materials in the Vietnamese language. In general, monographs circulate for four weeks, microtext and maps for two weeks, recordings for one week, periodicals and reference materials are non-circulating. Monographs, microtext, maps, and recordings circulate routinely on interlibrary loan, and photocopies of articles from journals and reference books may also be obtained through that medium. Requests for Vietnamese materials should follow standard interlibrary loan format, including complete bibliographic citation, verification, and/or patron's source for each request. Because of heavy demands on the collection, individual titles are frequently in use when requested. Since many requests for Vietnamese materials are for leisure reading, Morris Library's Interlibrary Loan Department will honor general information requests for materials from that collection, provided the patron's needs can be stated clearly in a brief sentence or paragraph. Information requests from Illinois libraries should be submitted on the standard Illinois Library Network (ILLINET) Information Request Form. Requests from non-Illinois libraries should include a statement of the patron's needs (e.g., leisure reading (fiction) in the Vietnamese language; history of Vietnam in Vietnamese language, etc.), patron's reading level if other than adult, and the number of items needed.

Morris Library administrators and staff recognize both the uniqueness of the Vietnamese collection and the needs of patrons throughout the nation for these scarce items, and are attempting to achieve a balance between service to the patron and preservation of the materials. Condition of an item, local demand for a title, or mailing difficulties may influence a lending decision, but reasonable effort will be made to accommodate patron's needs both on and off campus.

189