VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The South Kalimantan (Kalsel) Library Development Coordination Meeting took photo after the disscusion (Photo : Perpusnas) - 

Voinews, Jakarta - The National Library of the Republic of Indonesia (Perpusnas) initiated a program for 10 thousand libraries throughout Indonesia. This is done as an effort to build a reading culture in the community.

Acting Director of the National Library, E. Aminudin Azis, stated that the National Library has three priority programs that will be implemented in 2024, namely strengthening reading and literacy culture, mainstreaming Indonesian manuscripts, and library standardization and development.

"A reading culture must be built, because someone can be said to be literate after he can read well, read critically. "So, this reading culture must be developed early," he said at the South Kalimantan (Kalsel) Library Development Coordination Meeting held in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, on Thursday evening (15/2/2024).

He said that the National Library would create 10 thousand village libraries throughout Indonesia, where each library would receive a thousand books along with shelves for storage.

"We base it on existing data and proposals from districts/cities. The condition is that they have to assign people who will manage the library. The regional library will be the one to develop it in the future," he continued.

In the presentation presented, the village libraries are 600 village/subdistrict libraries for Social Inclusion Based Library Transformation (TPBIS), 4,604 TPBIS replication village/subdistrict libraries, 2,409 libraries proposed by the district/city government, as well as 2,387 community reading parks (TBM).

He explained that in this program village libraries and TBM would collaborate with school libraries. The hope is that children can take advantage of books from both places.

“Because the books in the village library and those at school are of course different. So, we hope that everyone can use this," he explained.

Collaboration between the village library and the school library is carried out with activities to increase interest in reading, such as holding a week program of reading two books, reading aloud, or storytelling.

"Building literacy is building a generation, so building literacy and a reading culture must be instilled from childhood," he added.

According to a release received by Voice of Indonesia on Friday (16/02/24), in accordance with the national priority program resulting from the arrangement, in 2024, the focus on strengthening community literacy skills will be carried out in village/sub-district libraries.

Responding to this, South Kalimantan Province Assistant for Government and Social Welfare Nurul Fajar Desira expressed budget support for the 10 thousand village libraries program. This project will involve the head of the library, local government and the local community.

“We will discuss the details of this plan with the heads of libraries in the districts/cities. We will also prepare to identify the number of villages in South Kalimantan that can participate in this program. "Discussions with friends in districts and cities will be the first step in preparing to implement this program," he said.

He emphasized the importance of thorough preparation, considering the expected positive impact of this program.

"We believe that as time goes by, other regions in Indonesia will adopt similar programs. Therefore, we are committed to ensuring that we are fully prepared to implement this program," he stressed.

Meanwhile, Head of the South Kalimantan Province Library and Archives Service, Nurliani, said that as many as 10 percent of villages in South Kalimantan Province already have libraries built using village funds.

"To create this program, we will collaborate with related agencies. We also collaborate with other stakeholders, such as PT PLN (Persero) Central Kalimantan Distribution Main Unit which has built two village libraries," he said//VOI