VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Head of National Library, Muhammad Syarif Bando, meets Commission X DPR RI - 

Commission X DPR RI supports the National Library of Indonesia (Perpusnas) to obtain more budget in the coming year. This reflects on the National Library's budget performance score which reached 94.42 in 2022 in the very good category.

This was revealed at the Hearing Meeting held by the National Library of Indonesia together with Commission X DPR RI in the agenda for discussing the Budget Work Plan (RKA) and Government Work Plan (RKP) at Senayan, Wednesday (31/05/2023).

Deputy Chairperson of Commission X DPR RI Faction of the Prosperous Justice Party Abdul Fikri Faqih explained that currently the indicative ceiling for National Library Spending for the 2024 fiscal year is IDR 721.19 billion. This figure increased by 45.29 billion rupiah from this year's only 675.9 billion rupiah.

"National Library is considered capable of carrying out what is the hope of Commission X DPR RI even though the budget is very small and limited," he explained.

Fikri said National Library of Indonesia had submitted additional proposals to the 2024 RAPBN to strengthen literacy and internal service quality in the amount of 383.16 billion Rupiah and was asked to complete a study of the determination of programs and activity targets.

“It needs to be completed with budget data along with qualitative and quantitative studies on target setting. So it can be seen clearly in the RKP which activities require budget support," he added.

Head of National Library, Muhammad Syarif Bando revealed, not only in terms of budget performance value, distribution of physical special allocation funds (DAK) for 2022 National Library of Indonesia also occupies 2nd position with a value of 94.93% compared to other fields/sub-sectors.

According to a release received by Voice of Indonesia on Thursday, even though the budget provided previously was limited, National Library of Indonesia has already implemented many programs that are in line with the theme of the 2024 RKP, namely accelerating economic transformation that is inclusive and sustainable.

"In the 2024 RKP, National Library will focus on developing a culture of literacy, creativity and innovation in an effort to improve the quality of life and welfare," he said.

The Head of National Library of Indonesia further explained that this would be achieved in various ways. These include improving the quality of library services based on social inclusion, strengthening literacy content that supports community productivity, and developing an Archipelago manuscript center as an effort to develop and utilize the nation's cultural treasures.

In an effort to preserve the Archipelago manuscripts, Syarif Bando revealed that the National Library had collaborated with various parties. One of them, namely the result of National Library of Indonesia collaboration with Leiden University in the Netherlands and various parties who succeeded in obtaining the designation of the Hikayat Aceh Manuscript as Memory of the World (MoW) by UNESCO on 18 May 2023.

National Library of Indonesia has also signed an MoU with the British Library in terms of documentation and research on the cultural heritage of the Indonesian nation in its collections as well as good practices in managing manuscripts as cultural and historical heritage.

In line with this matter, Member of Commission X of the National Mandate Party Fraction Zainuddin Maliki said that with a fairly limited budget, National Library has shown very good performance.

"The mindset currently owned by National Library of Indonesia in efforts to build and improve literacy culture to the producer level is very good. This will be achieved more quickly if we can provide support to increase the amount of the budget, "he concluded//VOI