LIBRARY WORKSHOP

By Dwi Resmi Sari

During 17-25 Oct 2009, there was an Indonesian Library and Publisher Expo 2009 at Istora Senayan. I attended a library workshop which was held on Thursday, 22 October 2009 at 1.00pm. This workshop provided information about managing a library which was conducted by a lady who works at Kompas newspaper. I do not recall her name.

Before the trainer elaborated the meaning of a library, she explained that a library is a place to keep informative materials such as books, CDs, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, etc. A library should be managed in certain ways to provide benefits to public. It is necessary to create a conducive environment to encourage people to be life-time learners.

Objectives of a library are to encourage and increase one’s interest in reading, to create a reading habit, to introduce source of knowledge/science and to encourage group-learning process. Reading in groups may assist togetherness and team work as well. It is believed, that reading habit can trigger the growth of a child brain cells too.

She explained that to create a reading habit, it is necessary to supply good quality reading materials and to provide positive role model such as enthusiasm in reading to children since young age. The functions of a library itself are as education and information provider as well as a recreational facility. The aim of a library is to provide access to public to knowledge and education and to decrease illiteracy.

There are two kinds of library collections, book and non-book collections. Non-book collections comprise of regular issues, pamphlets, booklets, paper-clippings, maps, audio visual, etc.

The most important part of this workshop for me is how to manage a library such as

• Book registration
Each book has its own registration number and year of publishing. If the library has several copies of a book with the same title, each book has its own unique registration number. For example, 001/2007, 002/2007.

• List of Registration
In the list of registration, there are registration number, date of registration, name of author, title of material, place of publishing, city of publishing and year of publishing.

• Book classification
A library can create its own code of classification for example, FA for Children Story class, FN for Novel class. Or, children can choose color to code the books such as Green for children story class, Red for comics.

• Catalogue Record
The purpose of having catalogue record is to assist readers to find the book they want.

The trainer advised some creative programs to be held to increase readers’ interests towards library. Some of the programs are lending books, story-telling, movie sessions, story-writing contests, drawings and more.

I found this workshop is very useful especially to create a mini library in Cakung. It is our responsibility to develop children’s interest to reading.