Cirebon City Dispusip Revives Mini Library at Kejaksan Square

The Library and Archives Service (Dispusip) of Cirebon City, West Java, is reactivating a mini library area in the Kejaksan Square complex as an effort to expand literacy access for the community by providing reading spaces in public areas. Head of Cirebon City Dispusip Mastara stated in Cirebon on Monday that the revitalisation of the mini library has now reached approximately 90 percent completion and is targeted to be finished shortly. “The current condition is about 90 percent complete, from repainting, to the installation of an air conditioner, and leaks have been patched,” he said. According to him, a number of improvements have been made to restore the function of the library, which for the past several years had no longer been utilised as a public reading facility. In addition to building renovations, his team has also landscaped the area surrounding the library by adding a number of plants to make the facility’s environment more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing. Mastara said the ongoing phase of work is the arrangement of book collections, which are being placed inside the library before it is reopened to the public. “Now there are also plants around it, just the arrangement of books remains, which will be done this week,” he stated. He explained that the reactivation of the mini library is part of the local government’s effort to provide educational facilities that are easily accessible to the public, especially children who spend time in the Kejaksan Square area of Cirebon City. The presence of a library in a public space, he said, is expected to encourage the growth of a reading culture while also serving as a family-friendly learning space. To support the facility’s operations, Cirebon City Dispusip is currently conducting an inventory and selection of book collections to be displayed in the library. “This library acts as a trigger; we are also inventorying the books that will be displayed there,” he said. Mastara added that his team is also carrying out fumigation or anti-termite spraying, after discovering that most of the old book collection had suffered damage due to pest attacks. He stressed that this measure is being taken to ensure the new book collections to be placed there remain well preserved when the library begins operating again after the commemoration of Cirebon’s 599th Anniversary. “In addition to preparing facilities and infrastructure, I am also conducting fumigation or termite spraying, because in Cirebon itself, termites proliferate rapidly,” he said.