A Time of Global Engagement, Digital Transition, Sustainability and Academic Support

The VGU Library experienced a demanding yet highly successful third quarter of 2025, marked by significant international and institutional collaboration, a variety of event organisation, and intensive preparation for the incoming academic year. A main highlight was the VGU Library as Co-Chair for the First International Conference on Library, Information Science and Scholarly Publishing (ICLISSP 2025), held on August 21-22, which successfully drew approximately 150 international and domestic participants. Apart from this, the Library also hosted a Digital Transition Workshop on August 18, and organized an inspiring Book Fair and Talk Show with the author Dr. Phan Viet in the VGU Orientation Week. The quarter also witnessed high profile guests such as the German Consul General Ms. Andrea Maria Sühl, delegations from Ton Duc Thang University and guests from Canada, Australia and India.

As a valuable motivation of Best Green Library Award granted in 2023, we continue to practice sustainability in our Library and for VGU Green University. Two key dedications are the coordination on the behalf of VGU for Sustainability Impact Challenge co-organised by RMIT University, VGU, University of Social Sciences and Humanities and International University –  Vietnam National University HCMC. The collaboration saw the great appreciation from VGU students who joined the program and got Sustainability certificates, and the winning team (including VGU students) proposed excellent ideas for Rize with pay internship and grants for their project. 

As part of the Fostering Green Science and Innovation conference series celebrating 50 years of Vietnam–Germany diplomatic relations, we successfully hosted Parallel Session 4 – “A University Campus as a Green Living Lab” and collaborated with Academic and Student Affairs for the VGU Student Sustainability Contest 2025 – Final Pitch on 24 October 2025. The morning session featured experts from Vietnam and abroad sharing insights on sustainable campus models, innovative design, and startup initiatives for green transformation, with active support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The afternoon contest showcased student-led projects addressing energy, waste, water, and circular economy challenges. Drizzle, Reflow Society, and 4Greener won the top three prizes, while Rewallution, TPK, and SEE earned special awards for technical excellence, community impact, and team dedication.

The series continued with the International Conference on Good Practices in Library Management (31 October 2025), co-organized by Tra Vinh University and VGU, which fostered professional exchange on innovation, inclusivity, and sustainability in academic libraries. Together, these events reflected VGU’s commitment to sustainability, collaboration, and knowledge sharing between Vietnam and Germany.

Ahead of the new semester, the Library devoted a great deal of attention to the continued growth and maintenance of the library physical and digital collections. In-house collection maintenance tasks such as a book inventory, unshelving and re-shelving, processing book requests for the purchasing new collection items for the new academic year, and starting updating the Course Reserves helped the Library prepare for the new semester. Digitally, the Library focused on preparation for subscriptions of new critical resources such as Thomson Reuters (LSEG), the complete Research4Life suite that includes Agora, Hinari, OARE, ARDI, GOALI, and the Perlego Ebook Platform. The Library additionally disseminated the EBSCO Academic Ebook offer for one year. In partnership with VNU, the Library continues to expand access to a wider range of information resources, and performed a trial of AI teaching tools and interactive e-textbooks via Pearson My Lab for some selected courses.

In addition to resource management, the Library focused on service specialization and enhancing student competencies with specific Information Literacy (IL) trainings. Topic-oriented IL trainings were organized for students participating Sustainability Challenge, new students, MEN students, and Master students. Cultural and community engagement as a service continued to be a pillar, which included hosting the Goethe film show, as well as handmade workshops in the Library events. 

Leveraging lifelong learning and research capacities, the Library has a paper presented in an international conference and facilitates cutting-edge research and digital learning. Work on the Open Access Publishing Support Services system attests to the Library’s endeavors to open scholarly communication. The Library and IT department collaborated to formulate AI Guidelines, along with research of several Digital Literacy frameworks for the next initiatives, and the Library Mobile app began development. The LibGuide – Subject Guides were revised to align with the study programs at VGU, and a specific case study on VGU students and AI affecting sustainability was initiated to begin exploring contemporary user shifts.

Article by Nguyen Thi Kim Tri, Vietnamese-German University Library.