Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Once it was just a big, dark, four-story building in the backwoods of the University of Indonesia campus in Depok, West Java.
But major changes have made UI's University Library a bustling center of activity for the university's students and academics.
Today, students' chatter and laughter can be heard ringing through the library's outer corridors. Some browse the shelves of the building's upper stories, while at the newly opened Kafe Libri, several students make use of the free hotspot to log on to the Internet.
""It's certainly different from when you were studying here several years ago,"" University Library spokeswoman Kalarensi Naibaho told The Jakarta Post.
She said the UI needed a library befitting a top university if it wanted to become world class, which meant providing easier access to the library's collection for students, lecturers and the general public.
""We have, therefore, developed a hybrid library, in that some of our collection is now available online through both the Internet and the university's intranet,"" Kalarensi, also known as Clara, said.
The digital library service was recently introduced in conjunction with the University Library's 23rd anniversary on Mar. 5.
The library provides online catalog access to its entire collection -- comprising reference books, fiction and non-fiction, theses, dissertations and magazines -- at www.lib.ui.ac.id.
""We also subscribe to some 25 online databases, making us one of the university libraries in the country with the most comprehensive online database service,"" Clara said, explaining that the database gives access to scientific articles and academic papers from international online journals on various subjects.
Besides the main library, each of the UI's schools have their own specialized libraries, and many of the departments too.
This is because the schools at UI's Depok campus are spread across more than three million square meters of land. A totally centralized library system would be inefficient for students.
""If we completely centralized the library, it would only benefit students from the Social and Political Sciences School and the Cultural Sciences School, who are in closest proximity to us,"" she explained.
While not all schools have linked their database to the library's online catalog, all students and UI staff are able to borrow books from other schools through the library's inter-library loan system.
""So far, only the libraries managed by the Computer Science School and the Economics School have linked their database to our online catalog. But we expect all other schools to also connect to us in the near future,"" Clara said.
The Cultural Sciences School Library, for instance, is preparing to enter its database in the online catalog.
""We've added our collection of theses and dissertations to the University Library's online service, but although our library is already available through the intranet, we have yet to enter the data in the online catalog,"" School of Cultural Sciences Library head Mohamad Aries said, explaining that one of the problems of integrating the database was the different software used.
He said the school library has over 52,000 titles, including specialized publications in various languages taught at the school, such as Chinese, Arabic, French, and English, as well as rare texts in ancient Javanese and Malay.
While the UI's libraries are open both to its students and to the public, only students and staff at the university are permitted to take books home.
