Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Siem Reap Public Library

Once a Khmer Rouge military depot, Wat Damnak is now home to the largest public library in Siem Reap, yes that’s right, it’s in a Buddhist Temple!

When we first arrived at Wat Damnak we asked where the library was, as temple grounds tend to have many buildings.  We were shown to a working temple, where i was quite disappointed in the books, but took photos anyway (with permission of the Monks)

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As we left the temple, I saw another building in the temple grounds and decided to investigate…..

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The library is Khmer studies and as you can see a majority of the books are in English (also a lot of French)  There were some shelves in Asian, but not sure which language.  I took a photo of the classification list, you can see they use DDC, but only limited numbers that are related to Khmer studies.

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This is the back of the library, the second photo you can just make out the students sitting on the balcony with desks at the wall, (on their computers) and a pond with lilies behind them, very meditative!  All in all a lovely library!

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