H.B. Jassin center is sadly neglected

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In a corner of Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) arts center lies a lonely two-story building that houses the country's most comprehensive literary arts documentation center, the H.B. Jassin Documentation Center for Literature.

A flower bed in front of the building's entrance tries to cheer up the building but neither the multicolored flowers nor the brightly painted structure can hide the gloomy atmosphere of the place.

Housing more than 18,800 fiction and non-fiction titles, 772 plays, 750 biographies, 15,552 newspaper clippings, 610 author photographs, 571 papers, 630 academic thesis and dissertations, 732 voice recordings and 15 video recordings, the center should have been a lively place of literary discourse, bustling with the comings and goings of intellectuals.

Instead, the center only averages 30 visitors a day, mostly from students who have been given homework and assignments from their teachers.

What about the general public? The inquisitive, the curious? What about those who simply want to look around?

"No, no public," the center's manager Endo Senggono sadly said. No wonder, the center has no direct access to TIM's main roadways and with the construction of a new theater next door, access is even more blocked leaving only a small trail for people to get to the center.

The center has been beset by a lack of funding even before its founder and namesake died two years ago. Ever limited in funds, the Asian crisis in 1998 further diminished the center's annual subsidy from the city administration.

This year alone, it receives Rp 70 million (about US$7,896) for the center's daily operations, higher than last year's Rp 65 million, but a far cry from the Rp 125 million it received in 1996, prior to the crisis.

As a result, the center only turns on its air conditioning for six hours every day, meaning that documents are often left exposed to humidity.

The center is dependent on the goodwill of its donors, which it collects in a time deposit and uses the interest to cover the difference in costs.

"But since the cut of the government subsidy, we had to also use the money in the bank," Endo said.

Furthermore, without Hans Bague Jassin, who used to actively collect books and documents himself, the center's collection seems to have also become stagnant, despite the fact the Indonesian literati continue to produce new works everyday.

Either that, or there was just not enough money to keep track of all the new material coming in.

"We do acquire new materials, publishers send us new literary works, we just can't keep track on the numbers," Endo responded when queried about the identical figures reported in the media between 1999 and 2002.

The collection at the center was the lifelong project of Jassin that began in the 1940s, and the establishment of the Documentary Center on June 28, 1976, was in part the government's recognition of the enormous undertaking that Jassin had imposed on himself, in this case by the Jakarta administration.

Among the files stored in the center are original documents from Jassin's editing desk during the years that he had been the editor for Mimbar Indonesia, Zenith, Kisah, and Sastra magazines. Also his correspondence with various literary figures.

Dubbed the "Pope" of Indonesian literature, Jassin was well known as an outstanding literary critic with major works such as Angkatan 45 (1945 Generation), Kesusastraan Indonesia Modern dalam Kritik dan Esei (Indonesian Modern Literature in Criticism and Essays) and Sastra Indonesia sebagai Warga Sastra Dunia (Indonesian Literature as a Member of World Literature).

Jassin died on March 11, 2000, at the age of 82 from a stroke, after devoting more than 60 years of his life to literature.

To provide and revive an endowment fund for the day-to-day operations of the H.B. Jassin Documentation Center for Literature, the center plans to organize a charity fund-raiser next month.

The fund-raiser -- expected to raise Rp 2 billion -- is planned to be the highlight of a "Festival Sastra" in commemoration of the 2002 Language and Literature Month on Oct. 26 and 27, at Galeri Cipta II Taman Ismail Marzuki.

The festival itself will include exhibitions of literary works, the screening of short documentaries of the lives of noted Indonesian literary figures, poetry and short-story reading, discussion and an art bazaar.

The event will close with a "Malam Terima Kasih" (thank you night) on Oct. 31, 2002, at Gedung Sapta Pesona, Departemen Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata, Jl. Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta.

For more information please call Pusat Dokumentasi Sastra H.B. Jassin, Kompleks Pusat Kesenian Jakarta - Taman Ismail Marzuki, Jl. Cikini Raya No. 73, Central Jakarta. Tel. 021-336641.