Bibliography on Indonesia published

JAKARTA (JP): The United States Library of Congress released a two-volume bibliography of English-language resources on Indonesia last week.

Unveiling Indonesia - Indonesian Holdings in the Library of Congress: A Bibliography was compiled by A. Kohar Rony, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Indonesian origin who is one of the library's Southeast Asian specialists.

It took Rony seven years to complete the bibliography, two sets of which he presented to the Indonesian Ambassador to Washington Arifin M. Siregar last Thursday in Washington, D.C.

The bibliography contains nearly 17,000 entries and three indexes - by name, subject and title. It is divided into 30 subject areas, including geography, ethnic groups, media, libraries, history, demography, social and legal systems, religion and popular beliefs, language and government.

The formats covered in the work range from reference works to audio-visual materials, according to a press release from the Indonesian embassy in Washington.

"This project is a small contribution to my native country," Rony said when presenting the bibliography.

The Library of Congress' collection on Indonesia includes much pre-World War II material. The majority of the collection dates from 1964, when the library established a field office in Jakarta and started its special acquisition program.

A. Kohar Rony was born in Palembang, South Sumatra, in 1933, went to the U.S. in 1954 to study and ended up staying. He obtained his masters in Southeast Asian studies from Yale University and masters in library science from Catholic University in Washington. He started working for the Library of Congress in 1962 and reached his present position in 1969. (swe)