Statistics on Readers' Use of Library Services

+ The number of documents serving high-quality students in the library is not much, most of them only have 1 to 2 copies of each book, so the maximum time for students to borrow documents is 1 week. For students who need to continue using those documents, they can extend for 3 more days.

+ If students do not return documents within the specified time, the librarian will fine 1000/day based on the number of overdue days. This ensures the rights of all students and the smooth circulation of documents.

- For staff in the Department :

+ Officers are allowed to borrow no more than 5 documents at a time.

+ Loan period not exceeding 3 months.

+ No borrowing

2.5.5 Document copying service

- The need for photocopying historical documents is very high, however, due to conditions not allowing it, the Faculty does not have an on-site document photocopying service. Readers who need to photocopy documents need to:

+ Register with the librarian.

+ Pay fee 350 VND/1 page.

+ Do not photocopy typed or handwritten copies (because the documents have been taken down)

grant).

Table 8: Statistics on the current status of library services usage by readers

Form

School library	Faculty Resource Room
Read on the spot	100%	100%
Borrow home	100%	60%
Copy documents	70%	50%

Maybe you are interested!

CHAPTER 3

SOME COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS AND SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY OF THE DOCUMENTATION DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES.

3.1 Evaluate the performance of the Documentation Department.

Over 50 years of construction and development, along with the formation and development of the Faculty of History, the Faculty's Documentation Room has an important position in the education and training career of the school in general, and the Faculty of History in particular. Currently, in the process of organizing activities, the Documentation Room has achieved the following advantages:

3.1.1 Advantages

- Rich and diverse information resources with many types of books, newspapers, and magazines to serve the information needs of many different readers.

- Close communication with agencies inside and outside the school, convenient for supplementing document resources. The Faculty's current rich number of documents is supplemented from donations and sponsorships from agencies, research institutes...

- The facilities are basically complete, creating favorable conditions for the organization and operation of information and communication technology.

- Specialized staff with professional expertise can process documents quickly and build a document library suitable to readers' needs.

- Organizing and arranging scientific document warehouse, convenient for searching documents.

- Applying part of information technology to library operations (using WINISIS software).

Besides the advantages achieved, the Department of Science and Technology still faces some limitations that need to be overcome.

3.1.2 Limitations

- Modern technical facilities have not been properly invested, so library operations still face many difficulties. Especially computer systems and other modern equipment to build a digital library in the future such as:

+ Barcode scanner system

+ Server and workstation systems have not received investment attention.

+ The printer and photocopier system is old and needs to be replaced.

- Document classification is often subjective to the staff processing it. The foreign language proficiency of library staff is still limited, especially with Chinese and Russian documents, so many documents have not been processed.

- Many grey documents have not been processed and built into database systems.

- Information search activities of users face many difficulties due to the narrow area of the library, the computer system is too small so it cannot serve many readers at the same time.

- The work of supplementing document resources has not been focused on, and has not been able to supplement specialized documents to serve readers. Currently, the Faculty's document sources are mainly from documents inherited from the former General University.

- Information products and services are not yet diverse, only partially meeting readers' needs.

- Traditional search engines are still more commonly used, making it more difficult for readers to exploit information sources.

- Readers' awareness is not high in using library products and services.

3.1.3 Causes

+ The operating budget of the Documentation Room is not much yet.

+ Although the librarian has professional qualifications in library work, he is still young and therefore does not have much experience in document processing.

+ Readers are not used to using modern search tools to search for documents.

+ The preservation of modern equipment in the Archives room is not yet reasonable, partly due to low reader awareness.

+ The supplementary work is still mostly subjective, not paying attention to the needs of readers to have appropriate supplementary policies.

+ The supplement of documents is not balanced between training sectors.

+ Not making good use of additional resources such as gifts, purchases, and exchanges.

+ The staff does not have a strict policy with students who violate library rules.

Through the time of researching and learning about the organization and operation of the History Department's Documentation Room, I boldly put forward some of my opinions and proposed solutions to further improve the effectiveness of the organization and operation of the History Department.

3.2 Some recommendations and solutions

3.2.1 Strengthening document capital.

Although the Faculty has built a rich and diverse source of documents, in the current period, the Faculty has expanded its training scale with many majors, so the Faculty's Documentation Room has not been able to meet the current information needs in a timely manner. This is shown in the following survey table:

Question: What do you think about the quality of the document content?

Quality of document content

School library	Faculty Resource Room
Update	60%	20%
Old	30%	60%
Too old	10%	20%

The results of the survey on readers' information needs show that up to 60% of readers think that the resources at the Faculty are outdated, which shows the necessity of supplementing the document fund. However, supplementing the document fund is not simply based on the preferences or subjective opinions of the staff, but must take the main target as the readers of the Faculty, supplementing documents must have content appropriate to each major and department being trained at the Faculty.

In addition to the quality of the document content and partly because the number of documents at the Faculty's Documentation Room only partially meets the information needs of readers, a group of information users have exploited documents to serve their needs at other information centers.

Table 9

Information and Communications Agency

Percentage
Faculty Resource Room	30%
VNU Information and Communications Center	60%
Libraries elsewhere	10%

Based on the analysis of readers' information needs as well as the specific situation of the Faculty. In the coming time, the Faculty's Documentation Department needs to build diverse and rich information resources, supplementing the following sources of documents:

- Specialized books

- Report/Research topic

- Thesis, Dissertation, Thesis

- Specialized magazine

- For gray documents, it is necessary to build a full-text digitized database.

+ In the past two years, the thesis documents defended at the faculty have not been kept in the library. This is an extremely valuable and important source of gray documents. We request that the Faculty Board give their opinion to the School to keep, preserve and serve this source of documents. In the form of requesting the doctoral student to submit an additional copy to the Faculty's Documentation Department.

+ Increase the budget to supplement specialized historical documents such as books, newspapers, electronic documents...

+ Closely manage internal resources (theses, dissertations, theses and scientific research works...) to serve students.

+ Add magazines periodically.

+ Coordinate to supplement information resources, especially electronic resources, through the purchase and exchange of directory databases, full-text databases, specialized databases, etc. Databases should be built according to a common format to facilitate exchange and sharing in information exploitation.

+ In addition to library activities, the Faculty's Resource Department needs to have activities to share information resources with agencies inside and outside the school. Especially in the training program of the Faculty, many departments use foreign documents for research and study. Therefore, cooperation and sharing with foreign agencies will be an advantage in supplementing foreign language documents.

3.2.2 Focus on investing in facilities.

The success or failure of applying information technology in information and communication agencies depends largely on modern facilities, techniques and equipment. Therefore, the Faculty needs to pay attention to building, renovating and expanding the area, especially the area of the book warehouse, to meet the increasing requirements.

increasing number of documents. At the same time, it is necessary to invest in a system of modern equipment such as: vacuum cleaners, dehumidifiers, ventilation fans and other technical preservation means... for the Documentation room.

+ Equip a computer system with library software and database management software installed to serve readers in searching for documents. The Faculty's computer system is too old and needs to be replaced.

+ Due to the large number of readers using documents at the Documentation Room, it is necessary to equip a camera surveillance system.

+ The computer system needs to be connected to LAN and Internet, convenient for sharing information resources between agencies inside and outside the school.

+ Invest in equipment to support business activities such as: photocopiers, photo scanners, barcode scanners...

+ Equipped with integrated software system for synchronous management. This software has many subsystems designed to solve specific tasks of functional departments of an information agency - library.

3.2.3 Improving the qualifications of information and documentation staff

Readers’ demand for information is increasing in both quantity and quality. Therefore, it requires information and communication staff to be trained in a fundamental and systematic way to meet the requirements of serving readers better and better.

Librarians are responsible for collecting, processing and updating information to meet the needs of readers. In response to the ever-increasing information needs of readers, librarians must meet the following requirements:

- Ability to process information quickly, accurately and effectively

- Solid professional qualifications, ability to organize and process information

- Have extensive knowledge in many fields and disciplines.

- In addition to professional qualifications, staff must also have foreign language and computer skills.

- Love the job and have a high sense of responsibility.

- In addition, staff need to have a plan to organize introduction sessions about the Faculty's Documentation Room so that readers can better understand the library's resources and regulations.

3.2.4 Focus on document preservation

Due to the importance of historical documents, preservation must be given top priority in library work, including:

- Protects against dust and mold

- Prevents harmful effects of insects (especially termites, mice, cockroaches)

- Resistant to weather effects ( due to erratic hot and humid climate)

- User negligence

 Measures:

- Ensure a cool space with enough light (in summer, add a fan).

- Reorganize the archives according to modern standards, apply modern information technology in document preservation.

- Regularly clean the document warehouse to ensure that the document resources at the Faculty are not damaged by harmful agents.

- Preliminary classification of documents before adding and liquidating documents

- Documents are arranged on shelves carefully and neatly.

- At the beginning of each school year, when new students enroll, the librarian has a session to instruct students on how to exploit and use documents and regulations when using the Faculty library (combined with the first political lesson of the year).

- Currently, in the library there is a type of valuable and unique document, which is typewritten and handwritten copies (History - Thought).

Comment