National Library of Laos

A new National Library of Laos building was completed at the end of last year. The new National Library of Laos is located behind the Kaysone Phomvihane Museum, named in honor of a former president of Laos, in Sivilay Village, Vientiane, Laos. Vientiane is the capital and largest city of Laos, on the banks of the Mekong River near the border with the Kingdom of Thailand. Vientiane is appreciated in the Buddhist world for being the home of Pha That Luang, a gold-covered large Buddhist stupa in the center of the city. The new library had been under construction since 2013. It was designed by Buakham Design and Consulting Co., Ltd. The previous National Library of Laos had been founded in 1956 on Setthathirath Road, Vientiane. The website of the old library points out that it contained about 300,000 books, 120 serials, 6,000 bundles of palm leaf manuscripts, 450 microfilms, 250 maps, and 800 audiovisual items. Due to a limited acquisitions budget, the library mostly relied on donations to build its collection. It has an annual membership fee of 200 kip which in local currency is equivalent to less than one Thai baht. This relatively low fee doubtless encourages as many Lao people as possible to benefit from the library. As of 1999, there were about 6,000 library members, with membership increasing at the rate of an 800 per year. Among the popular public programs at the library were storytelling sessions held around the Vientiane area. It also manages a bookmobile program several days of the week to service readers in more remote regions.

Among the library’s noted accomplishments was founding the Digital Library of Lao Manuscripts (DLLM). In the DLLM, over 12,000 texts from Laos are made accessible to international students and researchers. The project was achieved through cooperation between the National Library of Laos, the University of Passau, and the Berlin State Library – Prussian Cultural Heritage, in Germany. The scanning was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The DLLM website was opened for service in 2009. To preserve Lao manuscripts, over a decade manuscript collections were examined in more than 800 monasteries. About 86,000 texts were preserved and a central database was established. Microfilms of around 12,000 texts are now part of the DLLM collection. Surviving literature from Laos dates back to the 1400s. Works were generally copied over the years on palm leaf manuscripts. Mulberry paper was used to a lesser extent because it is not as durable as palm leaf. Sa is the Lao name for the mulberry tree, and sa paper is sometimes decorated with dried flowers. The copied manuscripts were usually stored in wooden caskets in libraries of Buddhist monasteries. A small proportion of texts are written on other materials, such as mulberry or sa paper, which is much less durable than palm-leaf. All Thais know that there has been much cultural exchange between the people of Laos and Thailand, including in the form of literature. Most surviving Lao manuscripts are in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. There are also narrative tales, as the DLLM website explains:

Many of these legends are among the most popular texts used by the monks in their recitations and sermons given to the lay people, and deserve special interest because they contain valuable information about social life and values in the Buddhist societies of the region. Other texts contain a wide range of works about history, traditional law and customs, astrology, magic, mythology and rituals, traditional medicine and healing, grammar and lexicography, as well as poetry and epic stories, folk tales, romances, etc.

One result of this longstanding effort is that microfilms of about 12,000 selected texts are housed at the Lao National Film Archive and Video Centre, with copies at the National Library of Laos, and the Berlin State Library – Prussian Cultural Heritage. The collection contains almost 500,000 frames, each of which preserves from six to eight palm-leaf pages. This makes a total of around four million manuscript pages recorded. Manuscripts chosen for digitizing were of historical and cultural importance, among other criteria. All those older than 150 years were placed on a priority list. Local folk traditions and subjects other than Buddhism were also focused on. Among categories are General Buddhism, Buddhist Tales, Folktales, Buddhist Chronicles, Secular History, Law, Philology, Secular Literary Work, Astrology, Medicine and Magic. Microfilming started in Vientiane, in 1994 and moved to provincial locations, in the many cases where fragile manuscripts could not be safely moved far. The scanning took place at provincial cultural offices and museums. Project directors are Professor Dr. Rüdiger Korff, chair of Mainland Southeast Asian Studies, University of Passau, and Madame Kongdeuane Nettavong, Director of the National Library of Laos. Madame Kongdeuane has stated:

I have a dream for Lao children to have bright and clear faces, happiness in their mind, when they are reading books. This is why I am eager to dedicate my time to them.

Emeritus Professor Harald Hundius, Ph.D., the project supervisor, taught languages and literatures of Thailand and Laos at the University of Passau. The library’s mission statement, dating from 2015, states:

• The National Library of Laos has a mission to preserve national cultural heritage; foster reading for development; and to promote organisational excellence in order to build a knowledge society for Lao people.

The strategic objectives of its collection development policies are, among other principal goals, to:

• reflect and preserve Lao history, culture and society
• better inform Lao people and international visitors about Lao history, culture and society.
• support social inclusion for all Lao people,
• promote innovation and new forms of creativity; and
• incorporate local knowledge and wisdom.

…

• enable more equitable and inclusive access to online information
• improve the economic, educational, health and social livelihoods of Lao people, including all ethnic groups.
• encourage deeper regional and international links
• support lifelong learning and the development of a knowledge society

 

Thailand and Laos

As all Thais know, Thailand and Laos share a border as well as similarities in language and culture. Despite some regrettable conflicts, in 2012 the website of the Embassy of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in the United States of America noted that Thailand and Laos would be deepening mutual cooperation. Thailand agreed to offer support in regional connectivity and infrastructure development in Laos. This would mean providing help in building roads from town centers in Laos to Lao-Thai checkpoints. The goal was to upgrade temporary checkpoints into international ones. One loan from Thailand would help fund a new road from Phudu checkpoint in Thailand’s Uttaradit province to Paklai district in Xayaboury province, Laos. Another would help develop the construction of Pakse Airport in Champasak Province, Laos. Feasibility studies on building bridges were also taken under consideration.

(All images courtesy of the National Library of Laos and Wikimedia Commons)