Piles of books in a modest room have brought great pleasure for young minds hungry for more pages to read.

As the sun was setting in Palu, Central Sulawesi, four boys were choosing which books to read from untidy heaps packed against the wall in a small room measuring only 4 by 3 meters.

The children, after finally finding books of their interest, Lingu, 11, Ojo, 11, and Yohannes, 9, reclined on the carpet while Fardan Abdillah, 15, sat on an old sofa, reading Doraemon comics, a forest conservation book and other titles. A moment later, six other boys joined them, barely leaving any free space in the small room.

The books in the mini library belong to Rini Rimbing and her husband Robi Pantolemba, a couple who live in an alley on Jl. Bali in Lolu subdistrict, East Palu. The books are not from bookstores or donations, but were collected from scavenges by the couple and others since 1999.

Rini told The Jakarta Post that while separating used papers, cardboards, electronics and plastic goods to be weighed and resold, she found many used books.

“I thought I’d better keep the books for children instead of selling them,” said the mother of four.

The woman who hailed from Manado picked up the used books from her husband when he worked as a scavenger. She continued doing so until she and her husband eventually became traders collecting used items supplied by other scavengers in Palu.

The books are heaped up in the small room, with no shelves or cabinets to keep them. The place is far from fancy, but everything is still in good condition.

Rini is neither a literary buff nor a bookworm, but the 42-year-old woman strongly believes that the books will be useful for the children in her community.

At first, the nameless small library struggled to gain any visitors.

“I spent days asking children to come over [to the library]. I also told my kids to bring along their friends. But it wasn’t easy and took a lot of time before they were ready to gather here,” she said.

She made various attempts to persuade them including treating them to fried bananas, tea and other snacks in the library room, where she introduced the book collections such as Japanese comics Doraemon and Kung Fu Boy, the Peter Pan fiction series as well as Islamic and Christian stories.

She eventually attracted some young visitors. Muslim children, for instance, often dropped by at her library after their religious recitation sessions with their friends, making the room crowded in the afternoon.

Its proximity to the local school also makes the library frequented by students during breaks.

“I’ve many times told children to go back to school because sometimes they were too absorbed in reading during school breaks here,” Rini said.

Even during school holidays, children are already in the library by the morning hours.

When there are no new collections, however, the library can be deserted.

Once, it had no visitors for an entire week until one day, a scavenger happened to find books from the trash can of a resident’s home in West Palu. The fiction books, without being sorted, were brought to the mini library.

Rini recounted the excitement of the children when they learned about the arrival of new books. She said a child who just returned from a nearby musholla (prayer room) ran to her house, enthusiastically screaming, “Tante [auntie], any new collections?”

So her library was again teeming with children. But later the problem recurred when there’s no fresh collections as children then would only come to play.

The small library has also attracted university students who have heard that its collection contained rare books difficult to find. They even use the library as a place to hold discussions in the evening, as well as read and borrow books.

Rini is not possessive with the books in her library.

“It’s just a matter of trust. Hopefully, the books they borrow will always be returned. But some of them haven’t been back yet. Well, the fact should be accepted wholeheartedly,” she said, saying that she was quite happy to see children spending their time reading in her small library.

Still, the couple’s sincere contribution drew the attention of a state-owned enterprise’s office branch in Palu. The company awarded them the Corporate Social Responsibility Award for Social Affairs on Dec. 10, 2012. They provided a book cabinet for the library, but it was too large for the room and could not be used.

Rini currently is striving to increase her children� book collection because scavengers lately have not offered any new books to her.

“God willing, I’m sure there will be more used books for our library. The children of wealthy people usually discard their story books after they’ve finished reading them,” she said.

— Photo  bY JP/Ruslan Sangadji

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