University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries Magazine Fall 2016 | Page 26

Wisconsin Idea, A World Away

By Erin Doherty

Larry Ashmun, Courtesy U.S.
Embassy Phnom Penh

The premise of the Wisconsin Idea is that the
reach of the University of Wisconsin should
go beyond its students and faculty and into
the community. In 1904, former University
President Charles Van Hise famously said, “I
shall never be content until the beneficent
influence of the University reaches every
home in the state.” There are UW faculty,
staff, and students all over campus who bring
the Wisconsin Idea to life. Their work reaches
outside the boundaries of the University and
has a positive impact on people not only
here in Wisconsin, but all over the world.
Among them is Southeast Asian and Hmong
Studies librarian and Linguistics liaison Larry
Ashmun.

“[My work] is always ongoing,
between helping faculty and
students here and helping
people learning around the
world in some cases….
Everybody and anybody is
part of our audience.”
Ashmun has three decades of experience
as a librarian and a well-spent 30 years it
has been. He started working for the UW
Libraries as a Southeast and South Asian
Studies Bibliographer in 2001. His current
focus is on Southeast Asian and Hmong
studies. During the late summer of 2015, he
travelled to Cambodia and Thailand to run a

26 | LIBRARIES Fall 2016

training program for Cambodian librarians.
“[The Center for Khmer studies] invited me
to go to Cambodia for roughly a week’s work,”
he said. “I went to Thailand too...Thailand is
one of our big countries for Southeast Asia
[Studies], and I just happen to be a specialist
in that area, so it dovetailed nicely.”
The trip consisted of two parts. The
purpose for which Ashmun was contracted
was to serve as a consultant and trainer
for the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS) in
Cambodia. He still provides assistance to
them as they continue to develop their
information services and library program,
and his overseas colleagues had nothing
but praises about his helpfulness and
contributions to their work.
“Larry worked closely with the librarian
team at CKS for two and a half days. This
training helped us better understand the
online resources,” said Daraneth Um, Head
Librarian at CKS.
CKS Executive Director Krisna Uk, who
also worked with Ashmun, expressed hope
that he benefitted as much from spending
time with them as they did from spending
time with him.
“He is a very good instructor, very eager
to understand the CKS Siem Reap and other
libraries’ needs,” she said.
The workshop that Ashmun led took
place in the capitol, Phnom Penh, and was
entitled “Building the Capacity of Cambodian
Librarians.” There were fourteen Cambodian
attendees, most of whom were information
specialists and librarians from Phnom Penh.
One was from the U.S. Embassy and three
were from outlying “American Corners”
libraries.
The second part of his trip took him to
Thailand, where he went in search of new
resources for the Libraries here at UW.

“Thai Studies is presently the UW’s
strongest area of Southeast Asian studies,
so I always include time in country for
liaisoning and networking with colleagues
and resource contacts, as well as business
with my principal Thai vendor, Thammasat
University’s Bookstore,” he said. “Success this
time included identifying new resources for
acquisition and adding a new dimension to
my arrangements with the Bookstore, namely
that they will now acquire resources from
Cambodia for the UW.”  
This trip followed a number of others,
including one in 2012, when Ashmun was the
recipient of a Fulbright Specialist Program
grant to Thailand, which also led to a series
of U.S. Embassy-sponsored presentations in
Laos.
Of his various trips, he said, “[My work] is
always ongoing, between helping faculty and
students here and helping people learning
around the world in some cases. Everybody
and anybody is part of our audience.”
The impact of his work is just as great
in Wisconsin as it is across the world.
Every summer he works with the Southeast
Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI),
an intensive eight-week language training
program on campus. Approximately 100
undergraduate, graduate, and professional
students attend the program each year. At the
beginning of each program, Ashmun meets
with the students to talk about the Libraries
and the resources we offer.
“I always want to connect to it because
most of the students who are involved are
from elsewhere; they’re not UW students….
in the summer, people from places that don’t
offer these languages, at least on a regular
basis or at the level they would like to study,
will come here. I always make it a point to
meet with them right at the beginning and
just orient them to let them know that we
have a lot of resources that [they] may not
always have had access to,” he said.

The University is not the only beneficiary
of Ashmun’s dedication. For the past ten
years, the Wisconsin Department of Public
Instruction has facilitated the Sunrise
Program, which involves students from
Thailand coming to live around the state
for a period of three weeks. Ashmun serves
as a contact for the University and helps to
organize the visitors. He also assists Olbrich
Botanical Gardens with the organization
of its Thai Fest, which first began in 2005.
Ashmun noted that Olbrich has the only Thai
pavilion in North America.
In addition to all of this, he also manages
an impressive collection of books and other
resources, one which regularly receives
monetary support for Southeast Asian studies
from the federal Title VI program and now
includes the leading academic Hmong studies
collection.
Ashmun’s work, as well as the work of
other librarians around the University, is
valued by people not only in the geographical
areas with which he is involved, but also by
students and scholars all over the world. It
is a living testament to the Wisconsin Idea;
proof that the work done at the University
does indeed span outside Madison, the state,
and the country.

(Top) Larry Ashmun with Krisna Uk of the Center for Khmer Studies.
(Bottom) Larry Ashmun with 13 Cambodian librarians visiting the Information Resource Center in
Phnom Penh. Courtesy U.S. Embassy Phnom Penh

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