Podcast Summary

New Books Network:

Episode: Cindy Anh Nguyen, "Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam" (U California Press, 2026)
Host: Jen Hoyer
Guest: Cindy Anh Nguyen
Date: February 6, 2026

Overview

This episode features a rich conversation between host Jen Hoyer and historian Cindy Anh Nguyen about Nguyen’s groundbreaking book, "Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam". The discussion dives into how libraries in French colonial Vietnam served both as symbols and instruments of Western modernity and imperial power, while also being appropriated by Vietnamese readers for their own purposes—often subverting colonial intentions. Nguyen introduces her original concept of "bibliotactics" to theorize these everyday acts of agency and resistance within library spaces.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cindy Anh Nguyen’s Personal & Academic Journey

• Cindy shares her background growing up in the Vietnamese diaspora in Southern California, inspired by family stories around the war, migration, and community translation (01:22).
• Her trajectory led her from a childhood surrounded by American public libraries to a career as a cultural historian focused on Southeast Asia, with interest in "the agency of everyday people, not famous figures, and the stories underlying collective identity" (02:50).
• Currently, she is an assistant professor at UCLA, appointed across Information Studies, Digital Humanities, and Asian Languages & Cultures, highlighting a cross-disciplinary focus on “culture, community, and public access” (04:44).

2. Defining "Bibliotactics"

• Nguyen introduces "bibliotactics" as:
  • Both theory and method to analyze how library users and builders in colonial Vietnam enacted agency, sometimes subverting or reshaping imposed structures (05:34).
  • "I wanted a concept that reflected the historical actors and what they were doing specifically in the library space... Blurring that divide between the rulemakers and the rule breakers" (06:17).
• Influences on the concept include:
  • Cultural history of Southeast Asia (emphasizing oral, collective reading traditions—06:54)
  • Colonial/postcolonial scholarship, notably on intimacy, power, and relationality (08:13)
  • Book and information history
• The book is structured around five "bibliotactic practices":
  • To document, to be in public, to circulate, to read, and to reassemble (11:15).
• Memorable Quote:
  • "[Bibliotactics] offers this theory to work across agency and the public... Not just top down or bottom up, but relationally" (06:41).

3. History & Significance of Colonial Library Infrastructure

• The “Colonial Information Order” was established to archive and control knowledge across Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), beginning with the Saigon Library in 1865, later centralized in Hanoi (12:53–16:13).
• Libraries started as tools for administrators but became public, especially the Hanoi Central Library (opened 1919), which grew to be among the biggest in Southeast Asia with 300–600 daily readers, mainly Vietnamese (16:31).
• "…By the end of French rule, the Hanoi Library was regarded as one of the largest and most developed libraries in all of Southeast Asia." (16:46)

4. The Library as Urban Public Space & Site of Encounter

• Libraries reflected and helped shape the public sphere in Hanoi and Saigon, bringing together bureaucrats, journalists, students, and ordinary readers (19:51–21:02).
• The majority of readers were Vietnamese; libraries blurred bureaucratic/state spaces with urban public life (21:02–22:55).
• Entry required paperwork and adherence to codes of behavior—access itself was an act of interface with the colonial state.
• "…To use the library…you had to bring extensive paperwork…proof of residence, proof of either employment or identification cards…you also had to sign and subject yourself to this code of public behaviors." (23:15)
• Collections were multilingual and cosmopolitan—offering French, translated, and some Vietnamese works, which further expanded the potential for self-directed reading beyond state intent.

5. Libraries as Cultural Propaganda & Rural Outreach

• French colonial authorities deliberately developed rural library systems (book wagons etc.) as cultural propaganda to counter rising anti-colonial sentiment and to “civilize” (29:11).
• These initiatives drew on models from Dutch Indonesia and the American rural library system.
• Ironically, the same campaign to deliver “apolitical” literature often ended up channeling popular Vietnamese works and unintentionally aiding their circulation (34:20).
• Memorable Moment:
  • "…The book wagons also became like social service wagons… They would distribute medicines and also offer other types of services, just because they're already going into the countryside…" (32:49)

6. Grassroots/Public Library Movements & Gendered Reading Spaces

• The formal colonial libraries were mostly urban and elite-oriented, prompting grassroots experiments in public/community libraries—locally called bình dân thư viện (“everyday person’s library”) (35:32–36:10).
• Vietnamese intellectuals and community leaders debated what it meant to create a truly public or representative library.
• Strong gender dynamics: most readers were men, but women’s reading and library spaces began to grow. Notably, female leaders organized their own small libraries, prompting a wider debate on gender and reading.
• Notable Quote:
  • "…I also wanted to center stories of certain Vietnamese women who were also trying to create alternative spaces of women's reading spaces. And that story hasn't been examined in the Vietnamese context much at all." (38:50)

7. Agency, Contradiction, and the Resonance of the Library as Political Infrastructure

• Nguyen’s research exposes both the rigidities and the cracks—moments where Vietnamese readers asserted their needs even within constraining systems (43:30).
• She shares finding heartbreaking archival petitions from Vietnamese readers pleading to regain revoked library privileges due to minor infractions. Despite repeated, empathetic requests, most were denied, highlighting both bureaucratic callousness and personal perseverance (43:47).
• Modern parallel: The library as a supposedly neutral space is a myth—public libraries in the US today are also caught in ideological battles over culture, power, funding, and propaganda (47:05).
• Notable Quote:
  • "[T]he library in the colonial context is about self direction and possibility. But it's within this hegemonic construct of the French civilizing mission. And you have the contradiction of… community and collective belonging… [but] also could be weaponized for a state project." (48:54)

8. Current and Future Projects

• Nguyen describes how her research expanded into creative and interdisciplinary modes ("the Anti Book"), blending archival work, digital humanities, critical fabulation, and even historical fiction to imagine everyday historical actors’ experiences (50:33–53:36).
• Ongoing collaborations with Southeast Asian librarians aim to “design library futures” that reflect indigenous and local needs, resisting imported Western models of what libraries should be (54:48).
• Notable Quote:
  • "It’s been quite a journey and I think with the finishing of the book, it really feels like one slice of the journey that is becoming." (56:18)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:22 Cindy’s personal history and intellectual path
• 05:34 Definition, influences, and examples of “bibliotactics”
• 12:53 Overview of colonial library infrastructure
• 19:51 The library as microcosm of urban (colonial) society
• 29:11 Libraries and cultural propaganda in rural Vietnam
• 35:32 Grassroots library movements & gendered spaces
• 43:30 Questions for researchers: agency, bureaucracy, resonance
• 50:33 Future projects: digital work, fiction, creative methods
• 54:48 Collaborations with Southeast Asian librarians for future design

Notable Quotes

• On agency and theory:
  "I wanted a concept that reflected the historical actors and what they were doing… blurring that divide between the rulemakers and the rule breakers." – Cindy Anh Nguyen (06:17)
• On the library’s ambiguous power:
  "The library in the colonial context is about self direction and possibility. But it's within this hegemonic construct of the French civilizing mission." – Cindy Anh Nguyen (48:54)
• On colonial propaganda and infrastructure:
  "These infrastructure projects, such as education, such as libraries, [would] benevolently raise the population to another layer of civilization—[justifying] continued kind of paternalistic relationship of French imperialism." (29:18)
• On the persistence of library users:
  "…There were endless very personal petitions from Vietnamese readers who had their library privileges revoked…one petition lasted over a year and a half. They kept re-requesting it." (43:47)
• On community, future, and interdisciplinarity:
  “It’s been quite a journey and…I think with the finishing of the book, it really feels like one slice of the journey that is becoming.” (56:18)

Tone & Style

The episode blends scholarly depth with intimate, personal insights. Nguyen is reflective, weaving together rigorous archival history, theoretical innovation, and lived experience. The discussion balances historical narrative, conceptual analysis, and contemporary resonance, making clear the enduring significance of libraries as both sites for power and spaces for potential agency.

For Further Exploration

• “Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam” by Cindy Anh Nguyen (University of California Press, 2026) [Open Access]
• Fields referenced: Southeast Asian studies, book and information history, gender studies, postcolonial theory, digital humanities