Reading Rules: The Symbolic and Social Spaces of Reading in the Ha Noi Central Library, 1919-1941 This article received the 2019 best graduate student paper prize from the Vietnamese Studies Group

This article examines how builders and users contested the cultural, political, and social mission and meaning of the Ha Noi Central Library [Bibliotheque centrale de Hanoi] from 1919 to 1941. I argue that the central library was not just a symbol of Western modernity, but a public space in which modern practices were defied and defined by Vietnamese students, urban readers, and administrators. Library readers freely accessed diverse print matter, practiced self-directed learning, and created a social space for study, research, and leisure. Through this historical study, I reveal how the library was a contested colonial institution and a formative space of urban social life.