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State Library aims to be preferred recreational venue

Posted on 07 January 2015

KUCHING: The State Library (Pustaka Negeri Sarawak) wants to be the
preferred recreational venue for families and friends to spend quality
time together be-sides being a major information resource centre in the
state.

With this in view, its board of management chairman Tan Sri
Datuk Amar Hamid Bugo said they were looking into providing more
facilities that could attract people to spend their time at the state
library.

“We have one of the most unique libraries in the world
that is surrounded by a park. The park is part of the programme to
enable visitors to exercise (besides being a recreational spot for them
to spend time with families and friends),” he said in his statement in
conjunction with Pustaka Negeri Sarawak’s 15th anniversary next year.

“We
have the herbal garden and park. These are only a small percentage of
what we actually have in mind to do. This whole area of 100 acres should
really be a hotspot of biodiversity.

“It is our plan to have
every local tree available in the tropical jungle to be here (park) so
that children can have the chance to learn, see and touch the different
types of trees when they walk in the park.”

He also touched on the
need for libraries in the state to be reorganised, as part of the “re-
engineering” process, as currently the libraries were under different
jurisdictions.

“Perhaps, in the first instance, we have to change
the ownership of the libraries to make them, however small wherever they
are, be under one ownership which is Pustaka Negeri Sarawak.

“Nevertheless,
we have to do some re-engineering on the organisation. We have to look
into strategies on how do we reach the rural areas and even more
important, we have to look at the real purpose of putting up a library
in each place.”

He also stressed on the need for the state library
to be relevant in terms of its books collection and service delivery,
adding if it had all the relevant books and information in its
collection, stakeholders would be motivated to use the facilities
provided.

Meanwhile, Pustaka Negeri Sarawak chief executive
officer Rashidah Bolhassan said besides supporting lifelong learning,
the other main function of the state library was to be the advocate for
library development in the state.

“Although the other public
libraries in the state are under local authorities, we are playing our
role to support them in planning for development, lobbying for funding
both at state and national level and the development of human
resources.”

The other core business that Pustaka Negeri Sarawak
was in, she added, was as a state depository, not only for published
materials but also as archive.

She noted that the state library’s
collection had grown to more than 200,000 over the past 15 years,
comprising both printed and electronic materials, which were not only
accessible in the state library but also other divisional libraries.

“In our function as the legal deposit, we have acquired more than 7,000 titles that had been published in Sarawak.

“In
our archival function, we work together with the government departments
for them to sur-render their inactive files or file which are of
archival age to be deposited to us. So far, we have managed to get more
than 150,000 items.”

Rashidah also reported that the state library
had recorded 3.5 million visitors, with 1.7 million using the
facilities provided, and it had a membership of more than 100,000.

Among
those present at the event yesterday were Pustaka Negeri Sarawak board
of management member Datuk Alfred Yap and Pustaka Negeri Sarawak library
services sector head Japri Bujang Masli.