Developing shared digital resources for more extensive and easier
access to scientific information in Indonesia
Sobari
Centre for Scientific Documentation and Information
Indonesian Institute of Sciences
Sobclcp@pdii.lipi.go.id
Abstract
This paper describes on-going activities in developing shared digital resources in university
libraries and information centres of government institutions in Indonesia. The main goal of the
activity is to to improve the availability and accesibility of scientic data/information which were
generated from the universities and government institutions. The benefits of developing shared
digital resources, government initiatives, Indonesian digital library networks, database
resources development in PDII, disseminating information, and the constraints of the
developing activities are discussed here.
1. Background
It has been realized that the development of science and technology needs the mastering
capability to utilize them. In the national level, libraries or information centres which could give
scientific information services to the scientific community or users as general, have a significant
role to accelerate the science and technology development. It has been also acknowledged
that there is no library that could give any services in all aspects of science and technology. So,
the cooperation between libraries or information centres would be more possible to give
satisfying services to the users. Beside, the continuing escalation of the price of materials,
particularly periodicals, means that meager budgets of developing countries lose purchasing
power year to year, so the capability to give satisfying services would also decrease.
The tradition of cooperative collection development and resource sharing among libraries
began decades ago as means to alleviate problems of lack of space and costly duplication,
especially for little-used materials. Now, with electronic networks facilitating cooperation, the
lines are blurring as to what constitutes ownership and resource sharing. Because of the vast
storage capacity of electronic media, space is no longer the issue. Rather, the issue for
libraries is the role they should play in access provision and document delivery when end-users
have direct access to OPACs and myriad other information resources available through
network connections[5].
Though, Indonesian scientific information networks has been a discourse in library and
information discussions since 1971, but their implementation is still need an improvement,
especially in the development of the resources which could be shared in the networks. The
growing popularity of the Internet as a source for information resources leads to the need to
apply rational collection development as the acquisition of digital library materials.
2. Objectives
The objective of the developing shared digital resources is to improve the availability and
accesibility of scientific data/information. Government institutions and university libraries are the
information sources of these kinds of information. They have published in limited number the
scientific grey literature which of course have limited dissemination.
3. Benefits
The developing shared digital resources will offer an extraordinary intellectual resource of
major research value not only to students and researchers in the institution but to the scholarly
community in general. If the availability and accesibility of scientific data/information could
extensively be improved, it would make benefits such as :

provide the academic research community with physical and virtual access to the shared
resources of all the library parties;

facilite scientific or technical collaborative activities;

facilite comparisons of topics and knowledge;

negate the reduplication research activities, plagiarism, and overlapped activities;

assist the government or controlling bodies in carrying out their controlling function; and

support decision makers in education and research sectors.
4. Government initiatives
In line with the necessity to develop a resource sharing and cooperative collection development
among scientific libraries, government of Indonesia through the Office of Minister for Research
and Technology has issued a Ministerial Decree No. 44/M/Kp/VII/2000 regarding science and
technology grey literature deposit. The implementation of this government policy is in the
digitalization of grey literatures which include theses, dissertations, and research reports, from
the science and technology related government institutions, non departmental government
institutions, and universities.
The step to initiate that program was the memorandum of understanding regarding a digital
library development signed between the Office of Minister for Research and Technology
(OMRT) and the university libraries or government institutions. The OMRT has awarded
docushare, a software for digitalization, to three universities in early 2002, they are UPT
Perpustakaan IPB (Bogor Agricultural Universitiy Library), Jaringan Perpustakaan APTIK
(Association of Catholic Universities-APTIK’s digital library network), and UPT Perpustakaan
ITENAS (ITENAS Library), and to PDII (Centre for Scientific Documentation and Informatioan).
The recent result of the digitalization process can be seen in Table-1.
Table-1 : Digitalization process in 4 docushares
INSTITUTION
DIGITIZED
DOCUMENTS
REMARKS
PDII (Centre for Scientific
Documentation and Information)
- 2.961 records
Research reports, articles, papers, and theses
(grey literatures)
UPT Perpustakaan IPB (Bogor
Agricultural Universitiy Library)
- 630 doctoral dissertations
- 800 master’s theses
- 250 appropriate technology
- Dissertation Summary
- 1979–2002 dissertations (almost all)
- from 8.000 theses collection
- the OMRT document (WARINTEK)
- CD-ROM format
Jaringan Perpustakaan APTIK
(APTIK’s digital library network)
- more than 14.000
skripsi, master’s theses, research reports, inhouse journals, and multimedia
UPT Perpustakaan ITENAS (ITENAS
Librarry)
- 17 ITENAS journal
- 24 books
- 9 ITENAS appropriate technology
- 9 ITENAS products offering
- RISTEK appropriate technology
- full text
- full text
- text and pictures
- text and pictures
- text and pictures
5. Digital library networks.
There are several university libraries and government institutions which have developed digital
library and build the networks. But, it could be mentioned that one of the outstanding
achievement in the building of information networks in Indonesia is the establishment of
Indonesian Digital Library Network (IndonesianDLN) in 2001. IndonesianDLN is the first digital
library network in Indonesia (http://idln.itb.ac.id.). The development of IndonesiaDLN was
pioneered and driven by the Knowledge Management Research Group (KMRG) at the Institut
Teknologi Bandung (ITB) Indonesia, together with other librarians and information engineers.
This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research
Centre (IDRC) Canada and the Indonesian Foundation for Telecommunication and Information
Research (YLTI) for the period of 2000-2002.
Prior to the IndonesianDLN was the establishment of Indonesia Digital Library Network Forum
(The IndonesiaDLN Forum) that was initiated at October 2000. According to Fahmi, head and
founder of Knowledge Management Research Group-ITB, the mission of IndonesiaDLN is to
unlock the knowledge of the Indonesian people – especially local content – and share it
nationally. It intends to provide information about Indonesia, including information about
Indonesian final projects, theses, dissertations and research reports, as well as such topics as
its heritage, regional power and history. It hopes to do so in an easy, user-friendly way that is
distributed and invites contributions widely from the Indonesian people. Such information will be
very useful in increasing the number of the nation's information literate and the collaboration
among them and in promoting Indonesia internationally. The member of IndonesiaDLN are
education institutions, research institutions, NGOs, community organization, government
institutions, etc.
IndonesianDLN is a new hope. Institutions, anywhere in Indonesia, as long as they have an
internet connection, can implement the network system and join IndonesianDLN. They can
share and download electronic collections on the Network. The IndonesianDLN is growing very
quickly. Only two months after its launch the number of registered partners reached 43. Of this
number, 14 have successfully connected to hub-server and shared their electronic collections.
The number has since increased. Furthermore, IndonesianDLN is ready for wider international
collaboration in developing DL networks especially among developing countries [3].
The other valuable Indonesian digital/virtual libraries have been developed to meet the
increases in end-user access to computer-based information resources and library use of
networks and telecommunications (see Table-2).
Table-2 : The main Indonesian libraries and the networks
LIBRARIES/NETWORKS
LOCATION
URL
REMARKS
IPTEKNET S&T information Center
Jakarta
http://www.iptek.net.id
Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia (National
Library)
Jakarta and all
province
http://www.pnri.go.id
PDII (Centre for Scientific Documentation and
Information)
Jakarta –Java
http://www.pdii.lipi.go.id.
UPT Perpustakan IPB (Bogor Agricultural Universitiy
Library)
Bogor – West Java
http://www.ipb.ac.id/
Jaringan Perpustakaan APTIK (APTIK’s digital library
network)
Bandung – West Java
http://library.unpar.ac.id/ or
http://dirac.eng.wima.ac.id/jpa/
UPT Perpustakaan ITENAS (ITENAS Librarry)
Bandung – Wes Java
http://docushare.itenas.ac.id/
Indonesian Digital Library Networks IDLN
Bandung – West Java
http://idl.itb.ac.id/
Perpustakaan UI (Indonesia University Library)
Jakarta - Java
http://lib.ui.ac.id
Perpustakaan Universitas Airlangga (Airlangga
University Library)
Surabaya – Est Java
http://digilib.unair.ac.id/
Perpustakaan Pusat Universitas Brawijaya
(Brawijaya University Central Library)
Malang – East Java
http://digilib.ac.id/virtual/
Indonesian Christian University Virtual LibraryInCUVL
Surabaya –East Java
http://incuvl.petra.ac.id
Virtual network
Jaringan Perpustakaan lingkungan Hidup
(Environment Library Network)
Jakarta – Java
http://lco.jplh.or.id/search.php
Virtual network
Jaringan Informasi Keanekaragaman Hayati
Nasional (National Biodiversity Information Network)
Bogor – West Java
Under construction
Virtual network
Mekanisme Balai Kliring Konvensi Keanekaragaman
Hayati (Convention on Biological Diversity ClearingHouse Mecanism)
Jakarta
http://www.menlh.go.id
Virtual network
Virtual network
Virtual network
6. PDII library database resources development
In order to provide extensive and easier access to Indonesian scientific information (grey
literatures), Centre for Scientific Documentation and Information (here after called PDII) library,
increases the cooperation to develop scientific information databases with several university
libraries and non departmental institutions. The participants of this cooperation are :

BATAN-National Nuclear Energy Agency (Jakarta);

LAPAN-National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (Jakarta);

LEMIGAS- Research and Development Center for Oil and Gas Technology (Jakarta);

BAKOSURTANAL-National Coordinating Agency for Surveys and Mapping (Bogor);

BPPT-Indonesian Agency Assessment and Application for Technology (Jakarta);

BPS-Statistics Indonesia (Jakarta); and

HANKAM-Security and Defense Department (Jakarta).
The Universities who have stated their agrrement in this program were :

University of Indoensia (Jakarta);

Bogor Institutes of Agriculture (Bogor, West Java);

Surabaya Institutes of Technology (Surabaya, East Java);

Brawijaya University (Malang, East Java);

Diponegoro University (Semarang, Central Java).
The database resources of each participant could support the resource sharing in servicing
the users. Details of database collections of each non-departmental government institutions
could be seen in Table-3 below.
Table-3 : Database resources in five non-departmental government institutions
INSTITUTIONS
DATABASE NAME/SIZE
DESCRIPTION
Indonesian Agency Assessment and Application for
Technology (BPPT)
Bibliographic database
15.000 records
records research reports in the form
of articles, research reports, theses,
dissertations, and annual activities
reports of the Agency;
National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN).
2,3 millions records
It is an International Nuclear
Information System (INIS) that
encompass 108 countries, 19
international organizations, and of
biliographic records. Abstracts in
English was cited in the
bibliographic description
SIPULITBANG
Intranet platform, records articles
and papers published by the
agency. Use MARC 21 and Dublin
Core
6.000 titles
Bibliographic records
4.000 titles
NASA journals
full text database
In-house journal
Statistics Indonesia (BPS)
bibliographic database
records survey documents along
with the instruments used; use the
CDS/ISIS software.
National Coordinating Agency for Surveys and Mapping
(BAKOSURTANAL)
BAKOS
records monographs, articles, and
analysis
National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN
PDII (Centre for Scientific Documentation and Information
BUKU
Books
BIBLIO
the results of surveys and researchs
performed by the Agency;
BUKU/29.123 records
books and monograph catalogue
LAPO/29.270 records
research report catalogue, and the
abstracts
CONF/27.680 records
index of work paper, seminar,
conference, etc.
TESIS/21.578 records
theses catalogue and the abstracts
ARTI/30.417 records
scientific journal article catalogue
and the abstracts
TTG/15.730 records
ISDS/7.425 records
annotation of appropriate
technology information.
Catalogue of ISSN
LIPI/2.300 records
Grey literature of LIPI
PATENT/500 records
Full text and abstract of Indonesian
patent
PTN/4.629 records
Patent
DESK/31.515 records
S&T descriptors
RUT/1.940 records
Integrated priority research reports
RIAU/592 records
Information Riau
TEUGM/10.227 records
Gajah Mada University Theses
7. Disseminating information
At least two different manners of information dissemination of shared digital resources could
be implemented, i.e. through the internet, and CD-ROM. In using the internet as dissemination
channel, it could be said that the databases from each library would contribute to be internetbased resources nationaly or internationaly. Unfortunately, at the present time, the Internet
frequently becomes the "World Wide Wait" due to slow response time on busy servers or high
volume traffic jams on network transmission lines or at hub intersections. At peak afternoon
and evening usage hours some Internet resources become virtually unusable due to slow
response time waiting to connect to overburdened servers or just waiting for the information
packets to traverse jammed network lines. One possible solution is to put a copy of the shared
digital resources materials on a local server, or use the CD-ROMs delivered to the local or
remote libraries.
8. Constraints
There are some constraints adhered in the developing shared digital resources in Indonesia.
Those are connected to :

human resources possession in the Indonesian library or information centers. Digitizing
documents needs computer-literate library staff that would operate the sophisticated
hardwares and softwares. The skilled librarians on those subject are limited;

copyright infringement. Some of the university library still afraid of this infringement caused
by the easy character of the digital library;

internet connectivity in Indonesia. The Government (Dirjen Postel: Post and
Telecommunication) has issued more than 150 licenses, but only about 40 ISPs are
operating, and most them are located in the Jakarta area. In other parts of Indonesia, only
Wasantara net (wasantara.net.id) is available.

budget. Beyond task-oriented considerations, such as the selection process itself, some of
the biggest problems, not surprisingly, stem from simultaneous decreases in funding and
increases in operating costs.
9. Conclusions
Developing digital resources, apparently, has become a common need of Indonesian library or
information community. Science and technology libraries or information centres should develop
their resources in a digital format and build the network, so the services could increase
tremendously because of a huge collection that has been integrated. But, it is not easy to make
cooperation with the others. Some obstacles pertaining in respectives libraries or information
centers must be justified. Those obstacles include the interests and mission of each library,
human resources, budgets, and their capability in the application of information technology.
But, the demands of scientific information is still futher growth and expand, so we could not just
waiting.The success of such a project also depends on an aggressive commitment by its
members and of course facilitator of the sharing activities.
10. References
Blasius, Sudarsono. 1999. The development of information infrastructure for R&D : PDIILIPI,s experience. The 1th Regional Workshop on S&T Information in South East Asia,
22 – 23 June 1999, Kuala Lumpur.
Coutinho, Fiona C. et al. [1999]. Integrating Digital Resources into a Traditional University
Research Library. http://www.istl.org/istl/99-summer/article3.html.
Fahmi, Ismail. [2001]. The Indonesian Digital Library Network is born to struggle with the
digital divide.
McGeachin, Robert B. [1998]. Selection Criteria for Web-Based Resources in a Science and
Technology Library Collection. http://www.istl.org/istl/98-spring/article2.html.
Schamber, Linda. [1996]. Library collection development in an electronic age.
http://ericit.org/digests/EDO-IR-1996-05.shtml.
Sri Hartinah. 2002. Science and technology, information databases and services at PDII-LIPI.
Centre for Scientific Documentation and Information, Jakarta.