Libraries fail to lure students to come

Libraries fail to lure students to come

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Librarians working at highschools in Greater Jakarta agreed on
Tuesday that school libraries in the city were failing to attract
more students because they were neither "fun" nor "relaxing".

Aisyah Abdur Rahman, a librarian at the SMUN 66 high school in
South Jakarta, said that out of the 700 students studying in the
school, only 20 of them used the facility regularly and many said
its services were inadequate.

"We don't have a catalog for our collection and there is no
multimedia equipment provided," Aisyah said, adding that the
library only had 40 seats and was still focussed on a physical
upgrade.

Another librarian, Umar, in charge of the SMU 5 highschool
library in Depok, West Java, said that his school's library
needed an internet connection to attract students.

"Spending time in the library should also be fun and relaxing.
A (DVD or) VCD collection is as important as the book collection,
but we're short of money," he said.

University of Indonesia Library Science Department head Fuad
Gani said according to his research, students' low interest in
using school libraries was related to the bad management of the
facilities.

"The conditions of many school libraries in the city are
distressing. My research showed that many principals considered
that good library management was not a priority and had no impact
on students' intellectual capabilities," Fuad told The Jakarta
Post.

Out of 500 Jakarta elementary school students that he
interviewed last year, the majority felt they did not need to use
libraries because they said buying books was easier to do than
browsing in libraries.

To help school librarians to turn libraries into comfortable
places to learn and research, his department, along with Program
Bimbingan Anak Sampoerna (cigarette manufacturer PT HM
Sampoerna's child development program) held a three-day library
management training course in the university's campus, inviting
participants from 20 schools in Jakarta, Depok and Bogor.

The program launched a campaign called Pustaka Kita (Our
Libraries) to train school librarians to motivating students to
come to libraries by formulating a catalog, adding multimedia
facilities and alternative reading materials, such as comic
books.

Fuad said the use of libraries was an indicator of the
intellectual capabilities of the next generation of students.

"We hope to encourage these librarians to improve their
libraries' conditions and to attract more students to explore
these places." (006)