National Library collection turning into dust: Dutch expert

JAKARTA (JP): About 75 percent of the collections of old books and manuscripts at the National Library in Central Jakarta are in such bad condition that they need immediate restoration, a Dutch expert said on Tuesday.

The head of document restoration at the Amsterdam-based Rijkmuseum, P.M. Poldervaart, said he predicted that within the next 100 years, hundreds of thousands of the books and manuscripts would be totally destroyed unless the management took immediate action.

"I can understand that restoring all the collections at present would need a large amount of money, but at least the library's management should set a constant temperature in the rooms where the collections are, so not to avoid further damage," said the visiting restorer who has worked at the Rijkmuseum for 35 years.

Poldervaart said he had witnessed that almost all of the books and manuscripts at the library were acidified, crumbling or had fallen apart.

"They will certainly deteriorate further because of the changing temperature. Everyday the air-conditioning at the library is turned off after 4:00 p.m. However, in order to maintain the collections perfectly, they should be put in a room with a constant temperature of 18 degrees Celsius and 50 percent humidity," he said.

Poldervaart has been working at the National Library since January this year, restoring 18th century drawings of Indonesia and several other countries, which were drawn by Johannes Rach (1720-1783), a Danish military officer who worked for the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC).

The library, under the coordination of the Rijkmuseum, plans to display 50 out of 176 Rach works belonging to the library sometime this year.

Poldervaart said he was shocked when he saw the poor condition of the invaluable works by Rach.

"The color of the paper has turned brown due to acidification and decay," he said.

The works were restored after a two and a half months of work, led by Poldervaart, along with some of the library's employees. The process included bathing the works in four different chemicals.

The restoration was carried out after receiving financial assistance from the Dutch government, which amounted to about 20,000 guilders (US$8,615) and was spent on equipment alone.

The National Library is home to 1.2 million printed materials and manuscripts, some 10,000 of which are extremely valuable because of their age and exclusivity.

"They are old and unique as no copies of these works can be found anywhere else," the head of the National Library, Hernandono, said.

"I truly understand that these invaluable collections are in danger of being totally destroyed, but we can do nothing due to our low budget," he said, referring to the Rp 11 billion allocated for the operation of the library from the 2000 state budget.

He said that with the low budget it would be impossible to provide the constant temperature required for maintaining the old collections.

"It would cost us too much if we kept the air-conditioning on after 4:00 p.m. My staff has even informed me that we have yet to pay the electricity bills for the last three months," he said. (ind)