Introducing numerous free resources on Vietnamese political history and Ho Chi Minh.

The speaker at the scientific seminar was Ms. Oliva Pelletier, Officer in charge of the Indochina Department at the Overseas Archives Center. Representing the Faculty of Political Science were Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lai Quoc Khanh, Dr. Luu Minh Van, and many faculty members, postgraduate students, and doctoral candidates.

GrandmaOliva PelletierThey are currently presenting documents on Vietnamese political history and Ho Chi Minh at the Overseas Archives Center (France).

During the meeting, Ms. Oliva Pelletier introduced to the faculty, lecturers, postgraduate students, and doctoral candidates of the Department of Political Science the collection of documents preserved at the Overseas Archives Center on the history and politics of Vietnam and on Nguyen Ai Quoc - Ho Chi Minh.

The Overseas Archives Center, established in 1966, currently stores 38 km of documents, including 6 km related to Indochina. The center houses 150,000 photographs, 60,000 maps, and 120,000 books, newspapers, and magazines about the colonial period. It is particularly noteworthy that the majority of these resources are freely accessible. Anyone can access them at: http://www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/anom/fr/

The source materials on the colonies are divided into many collections, such as the collections of state agencies in France, the collections of French colonial administrations, etc. For example, the Indochina Governor-General's collection contains many documents from before 1945: monitoring press activities, migration, correspondence, etc.; the military archive covers the expeditionary army, monitoring foreigners operating in Vietnam, those working for the colonial government, and documents about Nguyen Ai Quoc. Within this archive, the source materials about Nguyen Ai Quoc are very rich, approximately 7 boxes of files containing about 8000 pages of documents, and these documents have also been digitized and uploaded to the Center's website; etc.

Researchers are exchanging ideas and interacting with the speaker.

Regarding Vietnamese politics, the archive currently holds approximately 5,600 sets of documents, the most prominent of which are those concerning Nguyen Ai Quoc. The data includes: documents from the French state and colonial administration, images, audio recordings, correspondence, articles, etc. This resource has now been digitized and uploaded to the website of the Overseas Archives Center.

Following an introduction to the archives, Ms. Oliva Pelletier guided faculty members, graduate students, and doctoral candidates of the Department of Political Science on how to access and search these data sources.

Responding to researchers' questions about the quantity and extent to which these documents are being exploited and used, Ms. Oliva Pelletier shared that the Overseas Archives Center is currently continuing the process of digitizing documents to upload them to the Center's website. The number of digitized documents uploaded to the website is quite substantial, including many documents about Nguyen Ai Quoc... These documents are completely free for readers. Anyone can access, download, print, and use them.

France has passed a law on the right to access information, so documents can be declassified and made available to everyone after 50 years. However, when downloading or printing these documents, they will contain copyright markings; individuals or organizations wishing to access the original documents must apply for permission. Some documents related to commercial publishers will incur a fee, while others will be available for free use in their original form.

Associate Professor Lai Quoc Khanh, Deputy Head of the Faculty of Political Science, delivered a speech at the scientific seminar.

Associate Professor Lai Quoc Khanh, Deputy Head of the Department of Political Science, expressed his gratitude for the content shared by Ms. Oliver Pelletier. This scientific information is very useful for researchers at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in general, and the Department of Political Science in particular, because archival materials are the foundation and basis for scientific research, especially research on political history, on Ho Chi Minh, etc. This scientific activity is the beginning of a series of activities to support researchers in political science and Ho Chi Minh studies in accessing and utilizing archival materials both domestically and internationally.

Access to archival materials both domestically and internationally will open up many new avenues of research on Ho Chi Minh studies, Vietnamese political history, etc. Researchers in the Department of Political Science will strive to conduct individual and collective research to exploit these sources of information.