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Library offers knowledge, imagination to young pupils
Bali Provincial Library may only have a small number of new children books in its collection but it has some loyal young visitors who enthusiastically go through the dusty, yellowing pages to gain knowledge or indulge in a world of imagination
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Bali Provincial Library may only have a small number of new children books in its collection but it has some loyal young visitors who enthusiastically go through the dusty, yellowing pages to gain knowledge or indulge in a world of imagination.
The children's section of the library has two large rooms. The first room, where the walls are painted with Disney cartoon characters, has dozens of books. Here visitors can sit on big pillows or low wooden tables to read.
More books can be found in the second room, which is also equipped with a television set.
I Made Aditya Pramana and Nyoman Adi Paramarta, both six graders, regularly spend their weekends in the children's book section of the library, located on Jl. Teuku Umar.
"We recently made a simple barometer using information we found in a book from this library. We returned the book just now," Aditya told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.
The library's collection comprises more than 200,000 books, 9,000 of which are children's books.
Aditya and Adi said they were hungry for books on animals and science and were always excited if they found books detailing scientific experiments requiring only cheap and simple materials.
They said they wished to introduce the library to their school friends but most of them lived far away from it so they had trouble getting permission from their parents to go.
This may explain why the children's section is far quieter than the other rooms.
Some children's books, especially those about science and nature, are recent additions. Most folktale editions, however, are much older than the young readers.
There is also a collection of old and new, though not the latest, school text-books.
Ni Nyoman Andari, the library's head of service and maintenance, said the library continued to display old books as long as their pages were still intact.
She said the library bought around 5,000 new books annually. Selections are made based on visitors' inputs.
"We usually note what books visitors look for that are not available yet at the library and purchase them the following year," she said.
Lisnawati, a mother of two girls, who have been members of the library for two years, said she often borrowed older textbooks when her daughters were about to sit school examinations.
"Some questions and answers in the old books are still applicable, even though the books are no longer used at schools," she said, adding that she brought her daughters to the library almost every week because they were addicted to books.
Adi Paramartha said he hoped to find more comics in the library.
"There are only a few comics here," he said while showing an old dusty comic he found.
Dozens of old comics and novels for teenagers are actually available on the second floor but most of them are not in complete volumes.
The second floor has two separate rooms, with the first featuring reference books, such as dictionaries and law files, while the second houses a diverse range including education, culture, health, food, agriculture and tourism.
Andari said the librarians usually held a story telling session every week when kindergarten students visit the library. She said they would arrange many activities and competitions to attract more young readers next year.
