VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Today in History over RRI World Service, Voice of Indonesia. We start from an event on May 17, 1950 when association of Indonesian publisher was established.

Association of Indonesian publisher was established on May 17, 1950 in Jakarta on initiative and agreement of some national publishers at that time. In additional to encouragement to replace foreign publishers’ position, especially the Dutch which still monopolized book publishing activities in the country, the establishment of Association of Indonesian publisher was also imbued with great desire to help the government in establishing brilliant Indonesian people. When the establishment of the association only consisted of 13 publishers, now the number of its members has reached around 650 publishers throughout Indonesia. According to the history, the association of Indonesian publisher  still exists as the only one book publisher organization which is able to fight and to serve various concerns of its members.

The next event is that in 1980, national library was established.

Indonesian National Library is located in Jakarta. It has a duty to store state’s data and information. The library is also one of government’s agencies’ non-department which is under and responsible to the president. Earlier, the library was one of the realizations of the implementation and development of the national system of the library as a whole and integrated since it was planned its establishment on May 17, 1980 by the then Minister of Education and Culture, Daoed Joesoef. The agency is the result of integration of the four major libraries in Jakarta.

And the last event is about National Book Day.

Determination of May 17 as National Book Day was the initiative of education minister of mutual cooperation cabinet, Abdul Malik Fadjar since 2002. The decision of National Book Day is hoped to be able to encourage reading interest of Indonesian people, as well as to increase book’s sales. The date was chosen based on the date of the establishment of Indonesian National Library on May 7, 1980. The commemoration of Book Day is often related to reading interest in Indonesia which is still low. From study data of 'Most Literate Nation in the World' which has been released by Central Connecticut State University in 2016, Indonesia ranked in the 60th from 61 countries. The position was under Thailand and above Bostwana. To grow love of book reading becomes challenge for every individual. However, National Book Day commemoration is able to give positive impact in making people aware about the importance of the book. Even, to enliven the day, some institutions such as National Library holds event and activities aiming to invite people to visit the library.