National Library of Vietnam

This guide to the National Library of Vietnam opens on January 15, 1934, when a French airliner called the Émeraude went down on a hillside outside Corbigny, France, killing everyone aboard, including twice governor-general Pierre Pasquier. You'll hear how officials renamed this library after him fourteen months later, how it had first opened on Trang Thi Street in 1919 under governor-general Albert Sarraut, and what happened to his name after Vietnam declared independence in 1945. The guide also follows part of the collection that left Hanoi in 1954.