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Jakarta Post

More public libraries needed to promote tolerance

Reading pleasure: The National Library on Jl

Safirotu Khoir (The Jakarta Post)
Yogyakarta
Sat, February 15, 2020

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More public libraries needed to promote tolerance

R

eading pleasure: The National Library on Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan in Central Jakarta provides reading space for the public. As in Australia, libraries can become meeting points for people from different backgrounds, hence promoting tolerance. (JP/Rafaela Chandra)

In our multicultural cities where people from around Indonesia gather, such as Jakarta, we still sense considerable intolerance, as in last year’s presidential election and the earlier gubernatorial election.

Similarly, Yogyakarta, known as a city of students from various regions of the country, surprisingly and sadly ranks 14th of the nation’s 34 provinces in Indonesia on the tolerance index issued last year by the Religious Affairs Ministry. For a place of education and intellectuals, this is deeply alarming.

Intolerance also indicates, among other things, a failure of social inclusion. In a place like Yogyakarta, where people of different ethnic backgrounds come to study, good understanding among people of different backgrounds is mandatory for society to live in harmony and peace.

Failure to understand each other, on the other hand, may lead to a state of chaos. This condition would have been a contributing factor to racist incidences leading to massive demonstrations of Papuan students, including in Yogyakarta.

Mutual understanding can only happen when communication is in place. Although progress in technology has tremendously changed the way we communicate, physical meetings and gatherings remain irreplaceable. Apart from speech, gesture, body language, tone, facial expression and other nonverbal aspects play a much bigger part in communication.

Now, where should such meetings and gatherings take place? The public library is a good option, as it is a neutral, trusted and welcoming place for anyone, regardless of ethnic and religious background, to visit.

Public libraries can act as a secure meeting point of any community interactions, such as discussions, job or research interviews, musical performances, fashion shows or other collaborative projects. Public libraries can also provide a napping corner for patrons who need to rest when juggling activities.

Everyone in the community needs to see that they have public libraries as one important capital that belongs to them and the whole community. Thus, public libraries can encourage a warm and open environment of cultural diversity to support tolerance.

In developed countries the role of the public library in promoting social inclusion has become evident. In Australia, based on my PhD research, public libraries serve as meeting points where people of different ethnic backgrounds gather and exchange information. Australia, with a significant number of immigrants, understands the importance of public space to facilitate people coming to the new land.

With all the challenges the newcomers face, Australian public libraries have a good approach by offering facilitating activities, including language classes, cooking classes, piano and guitar courses, information and communication technology training, charity events, information and financial literacy programs, hobby clubs, baby and toddler programs and senior citizen activities.

Public libraries thus support activities for all family members. Australian public libraries also involve volunteers from various backgrounds to help and support different activities. This way, people feel a stronger connection to the libraries. Doesn’t sound like the public libraries we know? Exactly! Public libraries need to go beyond their traditional roles and functions.

Do our public libraries in Indonesia serve as places to facilitate interethnic and interreligious interaction? We have public libraries of course, although the number is quite small compared to our population.

In Yogyakarta, for example, we have one public library managed by the provincial government and five district libraries.

Although several community libraries are established independently, their number is inadequate. Statistics on the provincial government’s library website (dpad.jogjaprov.go.id) show low visitor numbers for a city of Yogyakarta’s population. People evidently don’t visit libraries as much as shopping malls.

In South Australia, 130 community libraries in every suburb have been established to serve a population of around 1.7 million. The state library creates one card system to connect one library to another to make it easier for users to borrow from and return items at any branch.

Meanwhile, libraries in Indonesia still focus on nurturing a reading habit. The role of public libraries needs to be expanded beyond just a reading place, so the community can benefit more.

To better promote social inclusion and tolerance, our public libraries need to be designed to promote interaction. The scholar Robert Putnam also stated that public libraries acted as social capital in both bonding and bridging between people. Bonding means that public libraries facilitate interaction among people of similar backgrounds and strengthen the existing relationships among them.

Meanwhile, bridging means public libraries can facilitate meetings of different communities to establish new relationships. This is possible as public libraries provide people with a sense of security; they are not intimidating.

The public library should be treated as a common and coworking space accessible to anyone, regardless of differences. It should act as a (creative) hub for various types of communities.

This way, society can have a bigger sense of belonging to public libraries. As social capital belonging to the society, they can and should go beyond their traditional roles to promote tolerance and social inclusion.

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Librarian at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and lecturer at UGM’s Graduate School of Library and Information Management. She obtained her PhD in Information Management from the University of South Australia.

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