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n March 2016, the president of Central Connecticut State University, John Miller, conducted research to map reading habits among 61 sample countries, including Indonesia. The country ranked second to last.

Nirwan Arsuka, the founder of Indonesian-based mobile library Pustaka Bergerak, believes that Indonesian citizens are not the ones to blame.

Instead, he blames limited access to books as the cause of Indonesia’s infrequent reading.

“There are a lot of people who labeled the younger generation as the lazy generation because they rarely read books. They are wrong. There are a lot of young people from remote areas who would like to read books but are unable to do so often because their access to books is very limited,” he said.

Nirwan then came up with an idea to collaborate with state-owned postal service Pos Indonesia to repeal shipping fees for delivering books.

He proposed the idea to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo during a lunch meeting on May 2 to celebrate Indonesian National Education Day.

Starting in June, people can use Pos Indonesia to ship books free of charge to every part of Indonesia, with a maximum weight of 10 kilograms per package.

This service is only available on the 17th day of every month, unless it falls on a weekend.

“The date was chosen by Pos Indonesia and me, since the number 17 is related to Indonesian Independence Day,” Nirwan said.

Before this service, Nirwan depended on Pustaka Bergerak volunteers to distribute books in remote areas.

Nirwan also said his volunteers used different modes of transportation to distribute books, ranging from makeshift rafts to horses.

In 2014, Nirwan rode his horse from Bogor to Wonogiri to distribute books under his library initiative. Pustaka Bergerak accepts any kinds of books for donations.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s used or new, as long as it’s in good condition,” Nirwan said.

Pustaka Bergerak has been distributing donated books from Aceh to Merauke since 2014.

Farida, the founder of donasibuku.id, said the free shipping program from Pos Indonesia helped her a lot with distributing books to remote areas, especially in eastern Indonesia. Similar to Pustaka Bergerak, donasibuku.id is a mobile library community.

Farida said before this program existed, donasibuku.id was only able to ship books to eastern Indonesia three times a year at most because she had to spend Rp 3 million (US$210) for 200 kg of books.

Now, the Jakarta-based mobile library could donate books every month using Pos Indonesia.

“Earlier this year I was frustrated because I was unable to deliver any books due to the high shipping fees,” Farida said. “Thankfully, Nirwan introduced me to Pos Indonesia’s free shipping service for donated books, so I can still deliver them,” she added.

Donasibuku.id started using the service in June.

As of November 2017, Pos Indonesia recorded that there were approximately 70 million kg worth of books, or an estimated 200 million books, that had been shipped off to other parts in Indonesia free of charge.

Those who want to make a donation can ship their books to libraries registered on Pos Indonesia’s Free Cargo list. Donors are required to write Bergerak (moving) as their sender ID. (dpk).