KITLV: Where we can learn about RI

KITLV: Where we can learn about RI

LEIDEN, The Netherlands (JP): Foreign scholars may imagine
that the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology, the
scholarly association that focuses on studies of Southeast Asia,
Caribbean and Oceania, has its office in a grand building.

Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde's (KITLV)
three-story office, located on the bank of the beautiful Witte
Singel moat which encircles the city, actually occupies a modest
building.

But inside the dull gray structure lies the great heritage of
Indonesia in the form of scholarly books, manuscripts,
audiovisual aids, photographs and others.

Just name the area of humanities studies on Indonesia, such as
regional dialects -- some of which are on the brink of extinction
like the Papuan Bauzi and Menyah languages -- or on ethnic
groups, and the material can be found here.

On hand are the invaluable original letters sent by Indonesian
women's emancipation heroine Kartini to her Dutch friends, or
classic literary works, like comic books by Kho Ping Ho and Gan
K.L.

"They could also be available in Indonesia, but a lot of time
would be needed to locate them because of the poor indexing
system," said Jaap Erkelens, the head KITLV representative for
Indonesia.

At present the institution manages 13,000 maps and atlases,
150,000 photographs from the colonial period, 3,500 prints and
drawings, 1,325 Asian manuscripts and other records and 930
audiovisual aids.

The extensive library is the pride of the KITLV. The
collection ranges from the earliest folio editions to the most
recent publications as well as everything in between. The
institute does not only restrict itself to documentation, but
also turns its expert hand to publishing the findings of
scholarly research in book form.

They have a long tradition of collecting data, right back to
its establishment in 1851 as a training center for colonial
ambtenaar (civil servants).

Last June, the institute celebrated its 150th anniversary,
holding various seminars and exhibitions with topics mostly
related to Indonesia, its main study.

"More than half of our resources focus on Indonesia," said
KITLV director Gert J. Oostindie.

What Oostindie claimed can be seen in the institute's
repository, located underground at the ideal temperature of 20
degrees Celsius and 50 percent humidity for keeping books, and a
capacity for 11 kilometers of printed material if they were
arranged in a row.

"So far, our collection has reached about 10 km with 260,000
titles and more than 500,000 volumes of material, about 60
percent of which are on Indonesia. We predict that the repository
will be full within the next two years, thus we are planning to
broaden it," said Roger Tol, the chief librarian.

The collection also consists of the complete series of about
250 national and regional newspapers from Indonesia and also
magazines.

Old publications that are out of print, such as Indische
Courant, Sinar Hindia, Harian Rakyat, Indonesia Raya and Pelita
Batak, or media published in regional languages, such as in the
Sudanese language magazine Mangle or the Javanese language
magazine Djaka Lodang, can be found here.

"The hard copies are kept here for a couple of years because
there is a policy that after two years the collection should be
sent to the National Library in The Hague. We then only have the
microfilm editions. We are proud of the collection, and even the
management of a mass media company could only find its first
edition here," Tol said.

The library's oldest publication dates back to 1521, and is a
handwritten book about the laws of the Portuguese kingdom. It
still is in good enough condition for visitors to safely leaf
through.

In the reading room, people will also find specific
periodicals, such as the daily report of current affairs in
Indonesia, a collection of news from electronic mass media, and
Excerpta Indonesica, a regular journal containing summaries of
printed material on Indonesia.

Indexing

Indexing is another strong point of KITLV's, and through which
all data can easily be accessed via the computer system. The
index includes 122 Indonesian magazines under a project called
the Southeast Asia Serials Index, done in joint cooperation with
the Australian National University since 1995.

"Our strength is indeed in consistent buying of the printed
material on the same study. That's why financial support for the
collection is quite big, and amounts to 250,000 guilders annually
from the KITLV's total budget of 5 million guilders," Tol said,
adding that the collection department together with the KITLV
Press are the main pillars of the institute.

Publishing started in the first year of the institute's
existence.Bijdragen (Contributions), the oldest journal on
Indonesia in the world that still exists, was the first
periodical published, according to Harry A. Poeze, director of
KITLV Press.

"Every year we publish about 15 scholarly books, 80 percent of
which are about Indonesia, with writers not only from the
Netherlands but also from all over the world like Australia,
Canada, America, Japan and European countries.

"We have a commission of five experts meeting three times a
year to assess the manuscripts submitted. So we guarantee that,
from the scientific point of view, our books are of good
quality," said Poeze, who is the author of the once banned book
about Tan Malaka, a noted Indonesian nationalist.

Pioneered by JC Baud on June 4, 1851, KITLV was established to
train the ambtenaar so that they can be accepted by people. "So
that they can exploit the country effectively," Tol jokingly
said.

Oostindie said that KITLV was an institution which has no
political agenda. "We do our work and we are in this field and
produce things which we hope are of use to the country we're
studying.

"Any country should be happy if another country takes a
genuine interest in it (and it also means) criticism, so if
people at KITLV analyze politics in Indonesia, it would help the
country, too. All of the books are a contribution to studies on
Indonesia," Oostindie said.

--Ida Indawati Khouw