Since its inauguration in September 2020, the Queen Mother Library, located at the Documentation Centre of Cambodia’s Sleuk Rith Institute has been a popular destination, especially among the diplomatic community.

Now, the library, a part of the Sleuk Rith Institute built in honour of Her Majesty the Queen Mother, Norodom Monineath Sihanouk, is looking forward to another good year with many other senior figures planning to visit the library and there are plans for an exhibition.

In a letter to the Queen Mother last week, Youk Chhang, the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam), gave an update on the Queen Mother Library.

“The Queen Mother Library has recently sent official invitations to visit the library to 168 embassies, international organisations and Cambodian civil society and government officials; and, as of the date of this letter, officials from the Philippines, Japan, and several international organisations have already officially confirmed,” Chhang wrote.

“In addition, while we continue to see a steady flow of visitors to the Queen Mother Library, we are eager to implement new ideas that will increase public access and convenience to the library.”

“We are confident that this, and other improvements we are
considering for the year, will be a welcome improvement for visitors to locate the library from the main streets and the Independence Monument,” he added.

In a reply letter, the Queen Mother thanked Chhang and his team for their good management.

“I am glad to learn that the Queen Mother Library is seeing a steady flow of visitors and that public access has been improved to
increase the number of compatriots that can benefit from the opportunities for research and scholarship available, through the numerous important collections of the library,” she said.

When contacted for comment yesterday, Chhang said of the 168 institutions, about 10% have confirmed visiting the Queen Mother Library.

“However, we expect all of them to confirm our invitations,” he said. “Last year, we had about 90 official visits, so this year will be a great year for us at the library.”