Interview with Librarian Roger Tol
By Dick van der Meij
Naturally, the first question which springs to mind is : What is a
Malaysian Resource Centre and why was the KITLV Library chosen to
house it?
The Malaysian Government is keen to highlight Malay Studies all over the
world. The first Malaysian Resource Centre was installed in Ohio and we in
Leiden are the second. The Malaysian Government is keen to promote
Malaysia and put it firmly on the academic map. The agreement includes an
annual donation of 3000 books and periodicals to ensure that scholars are
able to inform themselves fully about anything going on in Malaysia at the
present moment.
The KITLV Library was chosen to house the Resource Centre for a number
of reasons. In fact this move has close ties with the installation of a
Rotating Professorship of Malay Studies at Leiden University. The first
professor to hold this chair was Professor Muhammad Haji Salleh (see also
IIAS Newsletter 2 for an interview). He was on the lookout for a place to
install the Resource Centre and quite naturally he chose the KITLV. I say
"quite naturally", because the most important reason the KITLV was chosen
is that it has the one of the major collection on Southeast Asia in the world,
the Indonesian collection in particular is world renowned. Not only is it a
collection which redounds with academic importance, it is also one of the
most easily accessible in the world. Even though the collection primarily
contains materials on Indonesia, it also has a good collection on Malaysia
and other countries in Southeast Asia. It goes without saying that this
collection will benefit to an immeasurable degree from the installation of
the Resource Centre.
It defies the imagination that every book being published in Malaysia is
a candidate for inclusion in the KITLV Library collection. What is the
profile of the books to be included?
The materials will fit into the KITLV Library profile, which is in the main:
books on the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Malay counterpart is the
National Library of Malaysia. They know what we have in our collection
and at present some 1400 titles have already been selected to supplement
this. Only books and periodicals which have been published since the
signing of the agreement will be considered for inclusion. There will be no
acquisition of materials published prior to 1995.
It is wonderful to have this agreement as it gives Leiden just the face-lift it
needs to emphasize to the world at large yet again that Leiden is really
more than just a fount of philology, history, and boring old stuff. Scholars
are conducting very modern studies and innovative research in all fields,
here as well. At the KITLV Library we try to keep people informed about
daily events on Indonesia via our Daily Report on Current Events in
Indonesia, which is also available on the Internet. Happily, it has proven to
be the most popular information service on the Leiden network. We now
stand on the verge of seeing the start of an important collection about
Malaysia being built up. A Daily Report on Current Events in Malaysia will
be a logic follow up, plans for which are now in the pipeline. I would like
to draw attention to the fact that the donation will not consist of Malay
language materials only. Books and other printed matter in English will also
form part of the collection.
The materials we will receive will be mostly so called white materials,
published books. So called grey materials, like unpublished governmental
and departmental reports and statistics, will not be part of the donation.
These will have to be collected in other ways.
As far as I know there are no similar agreements with other Southeast
Asian countries, are there?
No. This Resource Centre really forms part of the Self Promotion of
Malaysia. Other countries are apparently not yet so keen to promote
themselves in this way, more's the pity. Perhaps this first agreement with
Malaysia will quicken the interest of other Southeast countries to follow
suit, but naturally that is entirely up to them. Of course, the KITLV would
be more than happy to enter into agreements like this with other Southeast
Asian countries, especially those on the mainland. We already have a nice
collection of books on Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and
other mainland Southeast Asian countries. We would be delighted to
augment these collections too.
You have visited the Malay National Library. Could you give us your
impression?
I was amazed to see their very modern library and super modern facilities.
It was absolutely fantastic. The collection can be consulted on-line. They
have their own home page. Everything moves at a fast pace and people are
full of get-up-and-go. We enjoy a very close working relationship with the
library. Their audio-visual centre is astonishing, complete with studios.
There is even a special audio-visual centre for children which is really
attractive and suits the children down to the ground. Everything is on a
small-scale and geared to children's needs. Wonderful! The library is run by
Ms. Puan Mariam Abdul Kadir who really knows what she is doing. In
point of fact, the library is more modern than those in Europe. An excellent
example of being able to start afresh, unhampered by old fashioned
materials which - as they are there - are not replaced and stand in the way
of the acquisition of really modern equipment.
The National Library has a coordinating function within Malaysia. As
coordinator for the Resource Centre we will be able to have access to the
collections of other Malaysian libraries as well.
I understand that the acquisition of Malay material in Malaysia from
Jakarta has been stopped. Does this mean that the search for older
materials will be stopped as well?
No, not really. Pertinently there is quite a dip in the KITLV Library
collection on Malaysia. The years 1950-1980 especially are ill-represented.
We do get donations which helps to fill this gap, but trying to fill a dip like
this is no easy task. We do what we can. Our Indonesia collection also has a
dip, especially for the materials for the period 1950-1965. We have been
able to supplement this by microfilming large parts of the collection of
Cornell University and by buying books on the antiquarian market. We are
virtually complete as far as Western language materials are concerned. Of
course, the library of Leiden University is very good as well on Indonesia,
especially the colonial period, and thus complements the KITLV Library
collections. One of our very strong points in the acquisition of contemporary
Indonesian documents is having our own office in Jakarta which has been
established more than 26 years ago.
How does this Malay Resource Centre involve the acquisition of
Indonesian materials?
Indonesia is not part of the picture at all. Nothing will change about our
policies regarding the building up of our Indonesia collection. The Malay
Resource Centre is a gift and as such does not involve our Indonesian
collections. What it does involve is our storage capacity which we have
updated recently to enable this new collection to be housed. Because of this
we will be fine for space for at least the next 15 years, so I think it will be
up to my successor to find ways to enlarge the storage facilities.
Malaysian Resource Centre
KITLV
P.O. Box 9515
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
Daily Reports of current events in Indonesia (KITLV)
gopher://oasis.leidenuniv.nl:70/11/.kitlv/.daily-report