I

n Balikpapan, the largest city in East Kalimantan, borrowing and reading books from its library is now merely a matter of a few taps on smartphones.

The city’s residents no longer need to physically visit the Balikpapan library on Jl. Capt. Pierre Tendean, as they can borrow and read books directly from their mobile devices following the launch of the city’s digital library app, iBalikpapan.

“Those who want to borrow digital books can download the iBalikpapan app from Google Play,” said Balikpapan Library and Archives head Heri Misnoto on Saturday.

Heri said that users just needed to register by filling a digital form with their phone number, email address and Facebook account information to gain access to the e-library, from which they could borrow a maximum of three digital books for four days.

After a user makes a selection from the catalogue of books available for borrowing, the app will send a verification password to their phone. Once the password is entered and the verification is complete, the digital book will be available for downloading.

“After four days, the digital book files are automatically deleted,” Heri said, adding that a user could borrow the same book as many times as they wished, just like at a physical library.

“The digital library currently has 2,243 titles, and it continues to grow,” he said.

The available titles are of the General, Religion, Politics, Language, Economy and Literature categories.

Heri said that the app was only available for Android smartphones so far, and the agency was developing versions for the iOS, Windows and Macintosh operating systems.

The iBalikpapan app, which claims to be the first e-library in the province, was launched by Balikpapan Mayor Rizal Effendi during the Independence Day.

The mayor also became the first member of the e-library.

“I hope, with the convenience offered by the application, reading habits will increase, especially among youth,” said Rizal.

Complaints, however, were received from the app’s first users.

Obi, a new member of the digital library who borrowed Nagabumi by Seno Gumira Ajidarma, said that developing the software for other operating systems was needed to facilitate reading convenience.

“It’s hard to read a book using a smartphone because the screen is rather small and the font is very small,” said Obi, adding that the app did not have a configuration to enlarge the font size.

Teddy, another member of the e-library, complained that the four-day borrowing period was too short. (ecn)