(VLU, November 12, 2020) - In the series of activities towards the 25th Anniversary of the university establishment, on November 11, 2020, Van Lang University (the coreteam is the Faculty of Law) in collaboration with the Board of the Project on Compiling the Vietnam Encyclopedia successfully organized scientific seminar with the theme "Implementation of the entry compilation of the Vietnam Encyclopedia".

Van Lang University is honored to welcome 03 leaders of Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences to attend the seminar:

• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lai Van Hung, General Secretary of the Vietnam Encyclopedia Compilation Project, former Director of the Institute of Dictionaries - Encyclopedias;
• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dinh Ngoc Vuong, Deputy General Secretary in charge of the Drafting Scheme of BKTTVN, former Deputy Director of the Institute of Dictionaries-Encyclopedias;
• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vu Ngoc Ha, Director of the Institute of Dictionaries and Encyclopedias and many managers and scientists of the Institute of Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Thi My Dieu - Rector of Van Lang University gave flowers and gratitude gifts to 03 leaders of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.

The seminar attracted more than 40 scientists in many fields from many higher education institutions, research institutes, state management agencies in the south; representatives of a number of central and local press agencies. On the side of Van Lang University, there were Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Thi My Dieu - Rector; M.A Vo Van Tuan - Standing Vice Rector; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Ang - Vice Rector and many leaders of Faculties, Centers, Institutes, Divisions, Boards, lecturers, staff and students of Faculty of Law.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dinh Ngoc Vuong, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lai Van Hung and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Anh Thuy moderates the talk

After the congratulatory speech and the opening statement of the seminar, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lai Van Hung - General Secretary of the Vietnam Encyclopedia Compilation Project presented the introductory report and exchanged many ideas with the participants, which are of practical significance to the awareness of the Encyclopedia and important instructions in its compilation.

It is known that on July 28, 2014, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 1262/QD-TTg approving the Project on Compiling a Vietnamese Encyclopedia consisting of 39 volumes, each volume will have a capacity of 1500 pages, covering a full range of social sciences, natural sciences, science and technology and engineering, defense sciences, diplomacy, security... To organize the compilation of the Vietnam Encyclopedia, on February 15, 2015 The Prime Minister issued Decision No. 238/QD-TTg on the establishment of the Committee for the compilation of the Vietnam Encyclopedia consisting of 16 members, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam holds the position of Chairman.

Evaluating the culture, cultural and scientific level of each country can be through the criterion of volume and quality of encyclopedias that country compiles and publishes for readers. Encyclopedic works play an important role in providing the most essential basic knowledge to readers: both as a reading, learning and research tool, and as a systematized knowledge and material that are collected comprehensively, meeting everyone's need for systematic self-study.

Dr. Architect Do Phu Hung - Dean of Architecture Faculty of Van Lang University expressed his wish that the Vietnam Encyclopedia would be published in an online version so that the whole people could use it more widely.

With the topic of implementing and compiling entries from the Vietnam Encyclopedia, in addition to the analysis comments on the goals, requirements, importance, and meaning of compiling the Encyclopedia, the organizational structure and the project's activities,… The participants of the seminar also discussed issues related to the implementation of the compilation of entries, such as: the principle of the division of volumes, the relationship between the volumes in the series. Encyclopedia; principles and procedures for gathering scientists to participate in compilation, principles of selecting entries, arranging and compiling entries...

Some comments have also raised some problems and shortcomings and suggested ways to handle these problems and inadequacies. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Anh Thuy, Dean of Faculty of Law, Van Lang University, Principal member of the Legal Editorial Board of the Vietnam Encyclopedia, pointed out one of the difficulties and inadequacies of the editing process such as composing  the "duplicate entry".

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Anh Thuy - Dean of Law Faculty of Van Lang University pointed out the problem of "duplicate entries" during the compilation process.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Anh Thuy proposed to choose the way to deal with the situation of duplicate entries as follows:

• Firstly, due to technical negligence of the table of entries in the same specialized book (completely identical): we remove one or the same entries;
• Secondly, there is a natural (inevitable) coincidence in the same book, but the content is different by sub-discipline: keep only one entry. In the content of this entry there will be smaller items.
• Thirdly, the same entries in some books: The specialized committees discuss and come up with solutions so that the writing board will be more suitable.
• Fourthly, the same entries but the content is the professional content of different specialized boards: the boards write together according to their expertise, then there will be a council or committee to deal with the duplicate entries into an entry containing the contents of specialized books.

At the closing part of the seminar, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lai Van Hung, on behalf of the Chairman, delivered a scientific summary, recognizing the valuable comments of scientists and state management agencies. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Thi My Dieu would like to thank the Scientific Committee of the Vietnam Encyclopedia Compilation Project for choosing Van Lang University as a partner to organize the seminar and to act as a focal point to gather scientists in the South to participate in the compilation of the Vietnam Encyclopedia. At the same time, she expressed her desire to continue to develop the cooperation between Van Lang University and the Management Board of the Vietnam Encyclopedia Project in the future.

The conference hall took photos after closing the seminar.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Quang Thinh
Head of the Constitutional - Administrative Law Department
Photo: Mai Nhan