EXCERPTA INDONESICA: 11.000 ABSTRACTS FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE

By R. Karni

Tempo Dulu
Before the Second World War The Netherlands were, for obvious
reasons, the world centre for the Humanities, the Social Sciences
and the Applied Sciences pertaining to the country now known as
Indonesia. This was reflected in the profuse publication of
academic books and articles and in the access provided to these
publications e.g. in the well known "Repertorium op de koloniale
literatuur ..." (1877-1880) and "Repertorium op de literatuur
betreffende de Nederlandse koloni‰n ..." (1895-1934) and numerous
other bibliographical and documentary works, all listed in the
"Annotated bibliography of bibliographies on Indonesia" by Herman
C. Kemp, published by the KITLV Press in Leiden in 1990.

LEAN YEARS
After the Second World War all this changed. The loss of empire
by Dutch academics, a traumatic process quasi-clinically termed
"decolonization" had tremendous consequences for the study of the
Indies in Holland.
Soon no more doctors, lawyers, anthropologists, economists and
linguists were needed for service in the colonies . Academic
interest dwindled fast and with it the urge to collect and make
accessible writings on matters Indonesian. The young Republic,
though notably its first Vice-President Hatta took an active
interest in scholarly and library matters, of course had other
than academic priorities.
Against the general tide of public opinion in The Netherlands a
few afficionados prevented the total decline of studies on
Indonesia in both countries. But, though excellent studies were
written during that period, the quantity was very low. The Dutch
role in Indonesian Studies and book collecting was taken over by
the Americans and the Australians.
As the fifties and early sixties passed, growing political
bitterness
- i.a. over the last remaining part of Dutch empire in the East,
West New Guinea/Irian Barat - prevented any amelioration of the
situation, leading in 1960 to the breaking-off of diplomatic
relations between the two countries.

NEW HOPE
Then, at the end of September 1965 a major change in Indonesian
internal politics took place. In a bloody upheaval the communist
party of Indonesia was crushed and the "guided democracy" regime
of President Sukarno fell. Its replacement by the "New Order"
under General (and later President) Suharto changed the "leaning
to the East" policies of the "Old Order" into a "friendly to the
capitalist West" attitude in both economic and foreign policy.
Even while the dust was still settling over the Islands, there
was an spontaneous response in academic circles in The
Netherlands. One unfavourable one by those who felt that
Indonesia now was lost to democracy or to socialism or both, and
who criticized or turned their backs on the new regime, and one
very favourable by those who had been praying, hoping, and
waiting for an improvement in Dutch-Indonesian relations for the
sake of their love for Indonesian Studies and who now saw a new
chance.

LIBRARY ACQUISITION AND DOCUMENTATION
In 1968 the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
(KITLV or Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology) in
Leiden, with help of the Netherlands Ministry of Education,
founded a Documentation Centre for Modern Indonesia, while a year
later an Acquisitions Office in Jakarta was opened. An ever
growing stream of books, academic periodicals, and newspapers
published in Indonesia, and elsewhere in the world started to
flow to the Institute in Holland, where these documents were made
accessible by its Library and its new Documentation Centre.
That is why Excerpta Indonesica was conceived and born in 1970,
as a bi-annual publication of the Documentation Centre.

EXCERPTA INDONESICA
Excerpta Indonesica lists titles and provides abstracts of
important
publications on Indonesia, mostly periodical articles, chapters
from "readers", and chapters from those books which cover the
whole of
South-East Asia under a non-Indonesia relevant title.
In its 24 years of existence Excerpta Indonesica has abstracted
some
11.000 periodical articles.
The fields covered include Agriculture, Anthropology, Economics,
Education and Environment as well as Foreign Relations, History,
Law, Linguistics, Politics, Religion and Sociology. In short the
whole range of the Humanities and Social Sciences, with a
smattering of Applied Sciences where relevant for the Social
Sciences.
The publications cited derive from as many sources as can
possibly
be tapped by the Library of the KITLV in Holland and its
Acquisitions Office in Indonesia - commercial, government, or
academic. Although the publications may originally be in Dutch,
Indonesian, French, Russian or even Japanese, the abstracts are
always in English.
Aided by computerized resources, a dedicated and academically
trained Staff does its very best to keep up quality while coping
with the ever growing amount of material.
Each issue of Excerpta Indonesica, since the merger of the
Library of the KITLV and the Documentation Centre for Modern
Indonesia in 1991, has contained approximately 375 abstracts,
while expansion to 450 abstracts is envisaged. As Excerpta
Indonesica is published bi-annually about 800 articles are
brought to the reader's attention per year.
The latest issue, no. 46, lists 199 articles and abstracts
published
in Indonesia, 64 published in The Netherlands, 36 in Australia,
19
in the United States, 16 in Malaysia, 15 in Great Britain and 10
in Japan, followed by a total of 17 articles published in France,
India, Canada, Germany, Russia, Singapore, Denmark and Hongkong.
As can be seen, especially from Indonesian language periodicals
the number of articles is very high. Thus, for Indonesian
researchers Excerpta Indonesica is, for lack of sufficient
library funds, the only means of keeping up to date of academic
studies on their own country.
To everyone else Excerpta Indonesica provides, in a nutshell and
at a very reasonable price, a basic academic background to life
in modern Indonesia in its political, economic, social and
literary aspects. It is a reliable guide to select articles that
deserve to be read in the original. There is actually no other
periodical in the world that does quite the same for the area.
The best way to check the above is to request a free sample copy,
as offered in the advertisement in this issue of the IIAS
Newsletter.

NEW ACCESSIONS LIST
To complete the picture of accesibility of printed resources, the
Library of the KITLV has recently taken the initiative of
publishing a list of new book accessions, as books generally are
excluded from citation in Excerpta Indonesica.
This monthly "Accessions List Bibliotheek KITLV" contains about
750 titles of newly acquired books (about 75% on Indonesia, 25%
on other countries in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean) per
issue. Although the titles listed are often provided with key
words, they are never accompanied by abstracts.
A free sample copy of this reasonably priced accessions list may
be requested from the KITLV Library, P.O. Box 9515, 2300 RA
Leiden,
The Netherlands. The price of a year's subscription is NLG 90.00.