Annual sessions of the Library Group for Southeast Asia (SEALG)1 are an important event for specialists involved in the formation and description of book collections and other written and artistic collections of libraries and research centers, as well as for those who are dedicated to studying the cultural heritage of countries in this region. At the previous SEALG session (Frankfurt, June 2014), participants decided to accept the invitation of the British Library's South Asia Archive and Library Group (SAALG) and jointly hold the 2015 annual session in Paris under the overall theme "France in South and South-East Asian Studies". The main objective of the session was to familiarize participants with the book and museum collections of France related to these regions, and with the work of their cataloguers, restorers and other specialists who made these documents and artifacts accessible to both researchers and anyone interested. Meetings of the first day (July 3) were held in the premises of the French School for the Study of the Far East (Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient / EFEO), a scientific center with a long and glorious history. It began in 1898, when the Permanent Archaeological Mission in Indochina, created on the joint initiative of the eastern branch of the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres (L'Academie des inscriptions et belles-lettres) and the colonial authorities of the then French Indochina, began working in Saigon. Since 1900, the Archaeological mission became known as the French School for the Study of the Far East, and in 1902 its headquarters became Hanoi. Among the tasks of the School were archaeological and ethnographic research, collecting manuscripts, preserving cultural monuments, studying the languages of the region and the history of civilizations from India to Japan. To this end, a library and museum were established in Hanoi, which later became the National History Museum of Vietnam, then museums in Da Nang, Hue, Saigon, Phno ... Read more