Visitors from Vietnam
Four librarians representing three medical and public health libraries in Vietnam visited HSLS on January 20, 2006 to learn more about academic health sciences libraries in the United States. The visitors were Nguyen Hai Ha (Hanoi School of Public Health Library), Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy and Nguyen Thi Diep (Central Institute for Medical Information, Hanoi) and Nguyen Huu Duc (University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ho Chi Minh City). They were accompanied by Chuong Huynh from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, who arranged their visit. Sponsored by the International Program of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the librarians spent most of their two-week stay in Washington, D.C., at the NLM and the Library of Congress learning about library technical services and electronic resources. They also found time to visit the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the National Institutes of Health Library in Bethesda, Md.
While at HSLS, the Vietnamese librarians toured Falk Library and the HSLS libraries at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, and met with a cross-section of HSLS librarians representing most HSLS departments. A highlight of the day was their presentation to HSLS staff about medical libraries in Vietnam, and problems faced in building a national medical library infrastructure. The visit continued with a stop at the School of Information Sciences to learn about the school’s distance education program, and a walking tour of the campus, including the Cathedral of Learning and nationality classrooms.
--Barbara Epstein
