Hai Phu Library - symbol of steadfast love

From books filled with meaning

This year, Mr. Duong Thai Nhon, the first Director of Hai Phu Library, turned 74 years old.

Having devoted his life to the library until his retirement, this place is no different from his family to him. Recalling the early days of the library's establishment, Mr. Nhon said: "In line with the movement towards the beloved South, in the years 1959 - 1960, in parallel with building their own libraries, the northern provinces also built libraries of sister provinces."

During the campaign to liberate the South, from March 1975, sister libraries were formed following the footsteps of liberation soldiers. Any province that had just been liberated immediately had a sister library. And after only a few months of preparing facilities and training local cadres, these libraries began to serve the people of the newly liberated areas.

14 years after the twinning with Phu Yen province, in 1974, the bombing in the North ended thanks to the Paris Agreement, in the exciting atmosphere of preparing for the final decisive battle, the first 500 books along with the backdrop, sound, and lighting system followed the footsteps of the liberation soldiers into Phu Yen.

On April 1, 1975, Phu Yen was completely liberated. 500 books from the revolutionary base were transferred and organized into 2 bookcases at Phu Yen Library (at that time, the 2nd floor of the hall of Ward 4, Tuy Hoa town, now the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Phu Yen branch) to open on June 22, 1975 to serve readers.

In July 1975, a delegation of officials from the Hai Hung Department of Culture (at that time, the merged province of Hai Duong and Hung Yen) led by comrade Vu Cat, Deputy Head of the Department, brought to Phu Yen 10,000 books, 4 book shelves, 1 catalog cabinet and many other equipment to build a library.

It took the delegation more than half a month to bring books, shelves, catalogues, etc. from Hai Hung to Phu Yen because the roads were very difficult at that time, and to cross the river, one had to take a ferry. With the desire to put the sister library into service of the people immediately, the staff devoted all their abilities, strength, and expertise to struggling with the huge amount of work.

"Mr. Nguyen Dinh Nha spent more than a month holding my hand and teaching me basic knowledge from classifying, describing, arranging posters by classification and alphabetically, stamping and labeling pages 1 and 17 of each book... I was very touched by the affection of Hai Hung brothers and sisters for Phu Yen", Mr. Nhon emotionally recalled.

Lchills over time

From those initial facilities, along with the constant efforts of the staff, Hai Phu Library grew stronger day by day.

The library is located on Tran Hung Dao Street (Tuy Hoa City), one of the main, bustling and historic streets of Tuy Hoa City. The spacious library covers an area of ​​over 2,812m2.² includes rooms serving readers such as: reading room, lending room, reference room, geography room, newspaper room, magazine room, children's service room and multimedia room...

The library has 458,145 copies of books and valuable documents. The library has digitized and created collections of local writings to serve readers; focused on communication work and displaying and exhibiting documents on the occasion of national and local political events.

Ms. Vo Thi Nguyen Hue, Deputy Director in charge of Hai Phu Library, said that the libraries of Phu Yen and Hai Duong provinces always support each other, exchange expertise, and learn from each other's experiences towards the common goal of best serving readers.

In particular, the library has a dedicated room displaying documents about Hai Duong, preserving books, bookshelves, and catalogs donated since 1975 and images of Hai Duong delegations visiting Hai Phu library in recent years.

On the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the twinning of Hai Duong - Phu Yen provinces (January 9, 1960 - January 9, 2020), Hai Phu Library is preparing to organize a special book exhibition on the twinning of Phu Yen - Hai Duong.

Every time Hai Duong province delegations come to Phu Yen, they always take the time to visit Hai Phu Library, a symbol of the relationship between the two provinces. At the end of November 2024, during a working visit to Phu Yen province, the delegation of Hai Duong province led by comrade Tran Duc Thang, member of the Party Central Committee and Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, visited and presented gifts to Hai Phu Library.

Visiting the Hai Duong document gallery, looking at the Hai Hung newspapers carefully preserved by the library from 1975 to the present, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee Tran Duc Thang shared: "In the 65 years of Hai Duong - Phu Yen twinning, Hai Duong people have had many projects, tasks and have special affection for the brotherly province of Phu Yen. Among them, Hai Phu Library is the name that every Phu Yen and Hai Duong person is always proud of a steadfast love".