I sit in a small room near the front of the National Library building in Phnom Penh. The room is just off to the right from the main entrance to the building. It has a large window thrown open and a ceiling fan that has only one speed - it whirls with the sound of a helicopter. This room is used for processing books: new acquisitions are given the library stamp and are duly logged into the list of holdings. The listing is number coded by date and by the number of new books received that year - not by any sort of bibliographical or cataloging system. But I am getting ahead of myself.
