Discussion «Library Talk 2026»

   Private and community libraries in Vietnam run on people who rarely have anyone to compare notes with: how to build a collection, where the money comes from, what to offer a reader beyond lending. Half an afternoon in Da Nang is set aside for exactly those people to talk to each other, with no lectern and no papers read aloud.

   The session carries the subtitle «Thư viện cộng đồng trong xu hướng mới» — community libraries under new conditions. It is one stop on a travelling series run by Local Bookable, a non-profit founded in 2019 specifically to connect and support private and community libraries across the country. The format is billed as practice-sharing rather than a lecture: what actually works, and for whom.

   Who is behind the meeting:

• — Local Bookable — a non-profit linking Vietnam's community libraries, working since 2019
• — Thư viện Dương Liễu — a community library with a collection of more than 10,000 titles and a programme of its own, with over fifty events already behind it
• — Skoolib — a library management platform for running collections and records
• — Vietnam Local Library Network — the local library network credited as a partner on the poster

   Come if you already keep a library, or a bookshelf in a café, school, coworking space or temple, and come if you are only thinking about starting one. It is useful to the people around the subject too: teachers, publishers, volunteers on children's programmes. Instead of general talk about reading, the conversation goes at the concrete stuff — building a collection, bringing readers in, money, record-keeping and how not to abandon the whole thing after a year.

   Places are taken by prior registration and the venue is small. The Powerhouse sits in Hải Châu district, walking distance from the Hàn riverfront.

   If your library is currently one cupboard and a lot of stubbornness, these two and a half hours will give it neighbours.