JP/5/Aceh

JP/5/Aceh

Books for Aceh campaign began in Canberra

Dewi Anggraeni
Contributor/Melbourne

When a disaster strikes, especially one as devastating as the
Dec. 26 tsunami in Aceh, people's lives are destroyed. Many
people literally disappear, and those who survive have to pick up
their lives from the pieces.

That is indeed what the survivors of the tsunami in Aceh are
doing. Assistance for redevelopment has been and still is coming
in from around the world. Apart from basic necessities, donations
also include funding for rebuilding schools, because the young
are very high on everyone's agenda.

A group in Australia is showing its concern for the young in
its own way. A coterie of six booksellers in Canberra have joined
forces with the National Library of Australia to raise funds to
buy books for libraries in Aceh.

What drove Asia Bookroom, Alexander Fax Booksellers, Book
Lore, Dalton Books, Gaslight Books and Paperchain Bookstore to
join forces was seeing the efforts of the National Library of
Australia, which was working to donate A$13,000 worth of
Indonesian-language books to Aceh.

The Australian National Library's regional office in Jakarta
has indeed begun to purchase the books, donating them directly to
camps for displaced persons in Aceh, where over 250 000 people
are now living temporarily, without knowing when they can leave
for more permanent homes. Since the books are purchased in
Indonesia, the library does not have to pay a lot for
transportation, so it can maximize spending on the books
themselves.

"I realize that getting books into a disaster region isn't the
first thing that is thought of or needed, when people are in
these situations," said Sally Burdon, the manager of Asia
Bookroom, "However, on top of all the terrible things that have
happened, they have nothing to do. What must that feel like?
Books are at least a way of learning new skills and having time-
out, getting one's mind off the current situation."

Spoken like a real book lover, and how true!

The booksellers in Canberra describe themselves as "just
ordinary small businesspeople who really want to help". It
started off with a dinner chat between Sally Burdon and Meredith
Wright of Dalton Bookshop after the tsunami. The chat turned
increasingly serious and ended with a determination to extend
help in their own way.

Burdon then contacted Amelia McKenzie, director of Asian
Collections at the National Library Australia, and learned that
the library was already organizing a book-buying program. Burdon
discovered then that the State Library in Aceh had lost over
200,000 books from their devastated library, and had also lost
several mobile library units.

McKenzie told The Jakarta Post that the manager of the
National Library of Australia's Jakarta office, Ralph Sanderson,
got in touch with Dadi Rahmananta of the National Library of
Indonesia. Dadi had visited Aceh in February on a fact-finding
mission and produced a sobering report of the situation of the
state library there.

The ensuing project is being supervised by Sanderson. The
first delivery of books was a huge success, with the arrival of
the mobile library unit greeted by a crowd of eager and welcoming
people who were thirsting for reading materials.

The Canberra bookshops have devised different ways of raising
funds, depending on the focus of their shops and their way of
doing business. Some will be donating a percentage of their
profits for a month. Most will have a "sale" table for people who
come to visit their shops. Asia Bookroom, for instance, which
also sells by mail order, has also appealed to its mail order
customers. It is donating 20 percent of its monthly takings from
its monthly bargain lists, and is also accepting donations. In
fact, within several minutes of sending the lists out, one of its
customers called to donate A$100.

People are particularly encouraged to hear that their money
goes a long way in buying books in Indonesia. For instance, the
National Library of Australia recently bought 15 children's books
for A$20, which in Australia would only buy one or two books.

Amelia McKenzie said there were plans afoot to help with the
library furniture such as shelves, but at the moment the focus
was on reading materials.

The endeavor will superbly complement the current project of
rebuilding and refurnishing schools in the devastated areas, and
will strengthen the existing ties between the community of
libraries in Australia and Indonesia.