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