Report on
Discussion Forum on Information Services in the Asia-Pacific
and
AGRIS/CARIS in the 21st Century
an Asia-Pacific Regional Consultation

Edited by Michael Ibach and Yvonne Byron

AGRIS/CARIS IN THE 21ST CENTURY

REPORT ON THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGIONAL CONSULTATION

4 - 6 NOVEMBER 1996

BOGOR, INDONESIA

List of Acronyms

[Chapter 1]
Recommendation

[Chapter 2]
FAO, WAICENT, AGRIS, CARIS Forestry Information Services for the 21st Century

[Chapter 3]
Activities of the Forestry Department of FAO in Relation to Research and Information

[Chapter 4]
Principles of Abstracting and Indexing as applied by CAB International

[Chapter 5]
Can We See the Forest for the Trees?

[Chapter 6]
Improving Access to Forestry Information: the Experience of FORSPA

[Chapter 7]
IUFRO and Collaboration Possibilities of Enhancing with AGRIS/CARIS

Country Reports:

Bangladesh

China

India

Indonesia

Japan

Pakistan

Papua New Guinea

Philippines

Phillippines 2

SEAMEO

South Korea

Thailand

Vietnam

Western Samoa

[Appendix 1]
List of Participants

FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION

SERVICE IN VIETNAM

AND THE NEED TO STRENGTHEN CO-OPERATION

WITH OTHER COUNTRIES IN THE REGION

Ha Chu Chu

Forest Science Institute of Vietnam, Hanoi, Vietnam

GENERAL

Forest science and technology in Vietnam have developed only recently compared to the surrounding countries. Only after the war for independence ended in 1954 scientific and technical activities including information services began to develop.

The two main information sources serving national forestry activities are the National Information Service and the Specialized Forestry Information Service

NATIONAL INFORMATION SERVICE

The National Information Service consists of a network of scientific and technical libraries of which the Central Scientific and Technical Library in Ha Noi (CSTL) plays the most important role.

CSTL is a multi-disciplinary science and technology library with a large collection, 97% is in foreign languages. It has links and exchanges documents with over 100 establishments in 40 countries. There are libraries in the ministries, universities and scientific research institutes. The libraries of Ha Noi University, Ho Chi Minh City University and Hue University have many valuable documents.

Provincial and town scientific and technical services manage separate libraries and almost all production units have their own reading rooms, mostly with collections in the Vietnamese language. Books on forestry are very rare.

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION SERVICE

The scientific and technical information service operates throughout the country. A network of information services covers almost all economic, scientific and technical fields, and has some specialised offices with documents (scientific reports, patent information, standardisation and technical norms information, etc.).

The network is linked at all administrative levels: central, local and grassroots. In addition there are the big libraries such as the National Library, and Central Scientific and Technical Library.

The collections consist of books, journals, periodicals, invention descriptions, reports on research results, technical standards and procedures. Formerly all foreign books and journals came from the former Soviet Union, China and eastern European countries, with those from western Europe and the United States being in great shortage.

Products are usually printed materials. Presently the National Centre for Science and Technology Information, Documentation (NACESTID) has Internet exchanges throughout the world. Information exchanges have taken place with UN agencies, international and regional organisations. Bilateral relations have been established with 8 countries and document exchanges made with over 300 libraries in 100 countries.

Information centres in the Ministries and localities are under the professional management of the NACESTID. This centre has also the responsibility of training information personnel for the whole country and provides information services.

FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION SERVICE

The Forest Science and Technical Information Service is part of the state information network. In the former Ministry of Forestry, now the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the information system consists of:

Forestry Review

The Forestry Review was started in 1982, and is issued monthly. It carries information on forest management, production, science and technical matters, State policies, and results of scientific and technical research. A scientific and technical bulletin attached to the Forestry Review contains scientific and technical research results.

Forest Science and Technical Information Centre (FOSTIC)

The Centre started in 1982 to provide easy access to scientific and technical activities of the forestry branch. The information bulletin of the Centre is issued bi-monthly. A bulletin, Vietnam Forestry, is sent to overseas countries twice a year. There are also reviews on subjects of special interest.

FOSTIC is part of the NACESTIC (in the Ministry of Science Technology and Environment - MSTE) and also has an information network of information divisions in production units, institutes and professional schools. The information bulletin issued by the Centre contains news on scientific and technical activities translated into Vietnamese from foreign books and journals. Scientific reports or subjects that need wide circulation are published in the form of Reviews. Publications of FOSTIC are free to local units. The target audience of FOSTIC is medium to higher level technical personnel working in production, research and teaching units. This kind of information however is also needed by managers at all levels, helping them to plan and guide production.

Forestry Extension Centre

The Forestry Extension Centre supports forest development programmes by:

• educating people in forest resource protection, environment protection;
• forest techniques and technology transfer; and
• linking organisations related to local forestry activities.

The extension system began at the end of 1991 using PRA methods and other tools suitable to each locality for information collection, analysis and synthesis. It consists of the extension centre at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, extension groups in provinces and production units and targets the households engaging in forestry.

Extension work in social forestry development is quite new in Vietnam. Co-operation needs to be promoted with other countries in the region to improve this work.

INFORMATION AND DOCUMENTATION SERVICE OF THE FOREST SCIENCE INSTITUTE OF VIETNAM (FSIV)

The Information and Documentation Division (IDD) of the Forest Science Institute of Vietnam (FSIV) includes a computerised library. In 1995 FSIV began computer links with the national centre and with the National Information Network.

Responsibilities and ongoing work

Information supply

• Computer connection is available to national VESTENET databases on related sciences from international CD-ROM systems, but little use is made of these sources due to limited English ability of scientists. The FSIV has also e-mail connections.
  
• Publications: Forest Science and Technical Information mainly carries articles written by researchers of the FSIV; Information on Overseas Countries' Forest Science and Technology is a translation of foreign journal articles; irregular publications of research results, books, reviews with financial support of international organisations (APAN, CIFOR).
  
• Library: foreign and Vietnamese journals and publications
  
• CD-ROM: with TREE-CD supplied by CABI and DAI CD-ROM disks from IDRC of Canada.
  
• Video/Photographs: one M7 camera.

Information storage

• Books
• Journals
• Computer databases: a database of about 600 forestry book titles (in Russian, English, French and Vietnamese). In addition a database has also been established of articles carried in the journal of FISV from 1985-1995 using ISIS software in Vietnamese.

EQUIPMENT

The IDD presently has limited hardware capacity. Up to the early 1980s, the IDD received assistance from the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. Between 1985 and 1995, budget problems restricted maintenance and expansion. Following the start of the renovation policy, international and regional organisations (CABI, CIFOR) have assisted development. The infrastructure has been upgraded step by step.

In comparison with the information service in countries in the region however there is still a rather large gap in all fields. In order to keep pace with other countries, renovation of the information service must be continued vigorously and strengthened in all aspects from infrastructure to skills and knowledge of the personnel. Especially in the field of electronic information the IDD has just only made some initial, limited steps. Thus more investment by the state and assistance of international organisations are badly needed.

GENERAL EVALUATION OF

INFORMATION SERVICES

Information services in Vietnam in general, and especially forestry information, still have many shortcomings:

• The information system is not yet complete so cannot fully meet the requirements of managers from central to local levels. There is a lack of national and international information to serve production, business and scientific research activities.
  
• Relevant forestry information is lacking and related services are weak both in organisation and material facilities. Modern information technology is not widely applied in forestry production. Due to limited contact in the past with countries in the Asia-Pacific region and other tropical countries, there has been a great shortage of documents needed for the development of tropical forestry, social forestry and household forestry. A large part of forestry documents available in the national library as well as in specialised libraries of forest institutes and college are those of the eastern European countries and Russia. Forests and social situations of these countries are different from tropical ones. They are also different from the developing countries in Asia.

Today, forestry in Vietnam is changing from a centralised system to social forestry, applying market mechanisms. Thus learning from experiences as well as studying forest science and techniques of tropical countries, especially of those in the region, is an urgent task. Widening and strengthening information exchange is of great significance, allowing Vietnam's forestry sector to keep pace with the development of the countries in the region and of the tropical world in general.