Originally established in 1917 as the Bibliothèque Pierre Pasquier, the National Library of Việt Nam currently houses more than one million books, has a total of 110 staff (80 per cent of whom are university graduates) and serves a readership of over 6,000. It functions as Việt Nam’s only national deposit library, so that all Vietnamese publications are lodged here, along with Vietnamese theses and also theses on Việt Nam written in other countries – its collection now includes some 9,000 PhD theses in total. The National Library also serves as a cultural resource and information centre, with its own dedicated department for research on Vietnamese art and culture. Amongst the Library’s pre-1954 collections are copies of Gia Định Báo, Việt Nam’s oldest newspaper dating from 1865, and over 4,000 ancient documents written in nôm. In 2001 the National Library moved from its original French colonial headquarters on Tràng Thi Street into a new US$ 6 million building located on the same site, extending the available space to a total area of 1,700 square metres and facilitating the creation of 10 reading rooms for c10,000 readers and new climatised storage space for over three million documents. Funds are now being sought to transfer antique documents onto microfilm and computer software. A centre for the restoration and conservation of books and old documents has recently been established within the new extension building. The National Library works closely with the national public library network, which comprises 64 provincial and municipal libraries, 577 district libraries and some 7,000 commune and village libraries or book cabinets. It is currently developing its WAN network to facilitate this task; to date it has been linked by computer to all provincial and municipal libraries and a small number of district libraries. The National Library is also charged with responsibility for guiding the professional development of library staff throughout Việt Nam, and to this end it actively seeks collaboration with overseas training institutions. At the time of writing the National Library is involved in collaborative activities with over 33 international research institutes and associations. The National Library's former colonial reading room now functions as a catalogue room and also serves an exhibition space: