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The International Information & Library Review (2006) 38, 123–131
The InternationalInformation & Library Review
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Desa Informasi: The role of digital libraries in thepreservation and dissemination of indigenousknowledge
Liauw Toong Tjiek (Aditya Nugraha)
Petra Christian University, Surabaya, Indonesia
Summary This paper talks about Desa Informasi (Information Village), an initiativeto document local information resources at Petra Christian University through theimplementation of an institutional repository (IR) system. The author argues that IRshave potential and an important role in the effort to preserve and disseminateindigenous knowledge. The author also describes the relationship betweeninstitutional repositories and digital libraries, that both are interchangeable terms.The paper also describes the impacts of the project to the campus community andthe society, and how projects such as Desa Informasi are important especially fordeveloping countries.& 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Background
Indigenous knowledge (IK) has for quite some timebeen ‘‘forgotten’’ in the globalization of modernscience and technology. However, the paradox ofglobalization—which increases the value of localinformation resources as the world becomes moreglobal (Liauw, 2005a, b)—has created ‘‘renewed’’interests in IK. The interests have so far mostlybeen generated in the Western world towards IK ofthe developing countries. Although the abovestatements are still open for debate, it is commonlyknown that IK is often still poorly documented letalone disseminated by most developing countries.
ee front matter & 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reservilr.2006.06.004
ess: [email protected].
Indonesia as a developing country suffers thesame condition of poor documentation and dis-semination of its IK. Some IK is already documen-ted, although not very well. Most is undocumented.Dissemination is even worse. This condition isexacerbated by the fact that Indonesia is anarchipelagic country and situated on one of themost volcanic-and-tectonic-active regions in theworld. Any volcanic or tectonic activity can causetremendous damage in local communities, includ-ing their IK heritage. The recent tsunami in Acehand Nias in December 2004 was a shocking exampleof such forces of nature. Undocumented IK wouldsurely vanish, while documented IK would stillvanish if not disseminated or replicated elsewhere.In this case preservation of IK entails documenta-tion and dissemination efforts.
ed.
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The root cause of the poor condition above isbelieved to be the fact that Indonesian culture—aswith most Asian culture—does not really havewritten tradition. Another factor is the ‘‘inferioritysyndrome’’ of the Indonesian people, including itslibrarians and other information workers, whichholds that knowledge generated by the West issuperior to their IK. These conditions have ‘‘con-tributed to the low appreciation of local informa-tion resources, which in the end impedes thedevelopment of such resources’’ (Liauw, 2005a, bp. 2). Most people do not think that IK is valuableand that anyone would want to know and learnfrom it. There needs to be intensive efforts tochange this denigrating perception, to encouragelocal communities to start documenting and dis-seminating their IK.
The rapid development of information technology,especially in the area of digitization and digitallibraries, could be the answer to improve thecondition in Indonesia and other developing coun-tries. The author has observed that digitizingdocumented IK and putting it on a digital libraryhas helped tremendously in adding ‘‘appeal’’ to theresources, which have previously been viewed as‘‘mediocre’’ in quality due to the inferiority syn-drome mentioned above. The digitized resourcessuddenly have ‘‘higher value’’ than before—whenthey were still un-digitized—and interest in preser-ving and disseminating similar (IK) resources sig-nificantly increases. The digital library has alsobroadened the access to the digitized resources. Itresponds to the needs for the dissemination of IK,which in the end helps secure the preservation ofthe IK itself since preservation of IK entailsdissemination efforts. Thus, digitization and digitallibrary hold great potential to contribute in thepreservation and dissemination of IK.
What is Desa Informasi?
Desa Informasi (translated into Information Village)is a n umbrella name for a university-wide effort/project to identify, collect, digitize, catalog, anddisseminate IK conducted by Petra Christian Uni-versity Library. It is an initiative to increase thevisibility of IK—for which in this project, the termlocal content (local information resources) isusually used—and it advocates the use of IK aslearning resources.
The project was started as a small-scale digitiza-tion project to convert students’ theses collectionsand store them in CD ROMs, since the library wasrunning out of space for storing the hardcopydocuments. However, the scope of the project
evolved into a full-scale local content documenta-tion effort.
Simply and narrowly put, Desa Informasi is aninstitutional repository (IR), which is a form ofdigital library (DL). However, in order to have aprecise understanding of the relationship betweenIR and DL—whether both refer to two differententities, or one—we need to visit the debates thatare still going on.
In The Case for Institutional Repositories: ASPARC Position Paper, Crow defines the ‘‘original’’roles of IR. First, is to ‘‘provide a criticalcomponent in reforming the system of scholarlycommunication y [reasserting] control over scho-larship by the academy, [increasing] competitionand [reducing] the monopoly power of journals y’’He then asserts that the second role is to ‘‘serve astangible indicators of a university’s quality and todemonstrate the scientific, societal, and economicrelevance of its research activities, thus increasingthe institution’s visibility, status, and public value’’(Crow, 2002a, p. 4). It is apparent that to Crow, IRswere originally meant to be, as Poynder put iteloquently, ‘‘a tool to assist universities to ‘re-shape the scholarly communication process’’’(Poynder, 2006, p. 1). In SPARC InstitutionalRepository Checklist & Resource Guide, Crowfurther defined the content of an IR as ‘‘scholarly;produced, submitted, or sponsored by an institu-tion’s faculty (and, optionally, students), or otherauthorized agents; non-ephemeral; and licensablein perpetuity’’ (Crow, 2002b, p. 25).
Lynch, in Poynder’s words, has more of a ‘‘librar-ian’s view of the world’’ and sees ‘‘institutionalrepositories as a species of digital library rather thana publishing platform’’ (Poynder, 2006, pp. 10–11).He tried to give a ‘‘definition’’ of IRs as follows:
A university-based institutional repository is aset of services that a university offers to themembers of its community for the managementand dissemination of digital materials created bythe institution and its community members. It ismost essentially an organizational commitmentto the stewardship of these digital materials,including long-term preservation where appro-priate, as well as organization and access ordistribution (Lynch, 2003, p. 2).
In the same article, Institutional Repositories:Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in theDigital Age, Lynch further states that:
A mature and fully realized institutional reposi-tory will contain the intellectual works offaculty and students—both research and teach-ing materials—and also documentation of the
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activities of the institution itself in the form ofrecords of events and performance and of theongoing intellectual life of the institution(Lynch, 2003, p. 2).
Desa Informasi adopts Lynch’s ‘‘definition’’ of IRs,which makes the terms IR and DL to be interchange-able, at least in this discussion. Lynch’s descriptionof the possible content of IRs, which is broader thanCrow’s (meaning that Crow’s ‘‘definition’’ is as-sumed to be a subset of Lynch’s), is also adopted.Based on the adopted ‘‘definition,’’ Desa Informasicurrently contains the following digital collections:(Liauw, 2005b).
�
Digital Theses: Petra Christian Universitystudents’ theses collection in digital format;mostly PDF documents. There are also anincreasing number of multimedia resourcesgenerated by the students of Faculty of Art andDesign. � eDIMENSI: Digital version of articles of DIMENSI,scientific journals published by various academicdepartments of Petra Christian University.
� Petra@rt Gallery: Works of art by campuscommunities (mostly students’ works) or worksof art that are exhibited/displayed at PetraChristian University campus; mostly photographsand digitized images. The collection containswonderful visual resources, capturing and im-mortalizing the intrinsic knowledge and values ofart in the works documented. Some of thewonderful themes are the Visual Poetry, CafeDecor, Chairs of Indonesia, Destination Branded,Nusantara Bersatu (United Archipelago), etc.see Fig. 1.
� Petra iPoster: Posters of events or issues relatedto Petra Christian University.
Figure 1 Batik pattern i
�
Petra Chronicle: Historical documents related toPetra Christian University (in planning stage).As apparent from the characteristics of the collec-tions above, Lynch’s content ‘‘definition’’ can besummarized as locally produced content/informa-tion resources. Desa Informasi expands the content‘‘definition’’ to also include information resources‘‘containing features of local entities’’ (Liauw,2005b, p. 1). It significantly affects the type ofcontent that can be hosted in Desa Informasi. Dueto this expansion, another collection has beendeveloped, namely Surabaya Memory, which con-tains documentation of Surabaya city’s historicaland cultural heritage, mostly old documents,photographs, and maps. Several sub-collectionadditions of cultural heritage resources are beingplanned.
While not every single resource in Desa Informasiis a documentation of IK, it is fair to say that themajority of them do hold certain level of IK, andquite a number of them are indeed documentationof IK.
Content development in Desa Informasi
There are certain approaches employed by PetraChristian University Library in the development ofthe (digital) local content of Desa Informasi. Theyare to:
1.
n N
be proactive and lead the way;
2. develop thematically; 3. ‘‘piggyback’’ the university formal administra-tive system;
4. make it their (academic departments, facultyusantara Bersatu.
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members, students, administrative units, etc.)interest, not merely the library’s; and
5.
go beyond digital content and digital librarydevelopment.The first approach requires the library to assume aleadership role in identifying and collecting thelocal content from the campus and local commu-nities. Lynch (2005a) in his Institutional RepositoryDeployment in the United States as of Early 2005emphasized the library leadership in an IR initia-tive. I agree that the library should take an activerole in helping the campus communities (theacademic departments, faculty members, stu-dents, administrative units, etc.) to identify in-formation resources in their possession that havethe potential to be developed into digital collec-tions in Desa Informasi. It is surprising to learn thatmost of them do not even realize that they haveabundant information resources, which mostlycontain IK and are too valuable not to bedisseminated. The campus communities also needassistance in collecting the resources. They usuallydo not have the expertise or experience indeveloping and managing information resources aslibrarians do.
Developing thematic digital collections is centralin creating added value for the collected resources.Having several smaller thematic collections ofinterest to the communities is far better thanhaving one big collection consisting of just aboutanything people can throw into the collectionwithout any defining ‘‘character’’ that binds themtogether. Choosing an exotic name for the collec-tion, which also defines the ‘‘character’’ of it, isalso imperative. Short and exotic names are easy toremember and make the collections personal to thecommunities. It further adds ‘‘appeal’’ to thedigital collections. It is a strategy to ‘‘attract’’interests, which in the end will translate into‘‘attracting’’ resources. This second approach alsostipulates that librarians conduct the collectionprocess, rather than providing the tools and expectthe communities to do it themselves. While thelatter is a perfect approach, I believe that most ofthe time it does not work, at least not in the earlystages of the initiative, since it takes time to buildinterest. It is a strategy to ‘‘absorb’’ proactively asmany resources as possible from the communities. Iwould be tempted to name this second approach as‘‘attract and absorb.’’
In order to be able to absorb or capture as muchIK of the communities as possible and to guaranteesustainable flow of resources into the IR, it isessential that the library formulate a collectionprocess that ‘‘piggybacks,’’ or at least connects to,
the formal administrative system of the universityor the local communities it serves. Otherwise thecollection process will be too massive to managesporadically and the sustainability of the flow ofresources from the communities into the IR willdepend largely on fluctuating individual interests.Liauw talked more on this topic in his article titledDesa Informasi: Local Content Global Reach. Thisapproach goes both ways. The collection process,which includes the cataloging and management ofdigital resources/content, also has to be integratedinto the library’s daily operational tasks. Otherwiseit will be a project-based activity that will bethreatened to stop after the funding is terminated.Poynder also suggests this approach when he saidthat ‘‘the time requirement [of the librarian(s)assigned to run and manage the IR] should easily beabsorbable into the university’s budget.’’ (Poynder,2006, p. 22).
In working together with campus communities—especially the academic departments and adminis-trative units—it is critical to always emphasize andremind them that it is to their best interests todevelop the content in the IR, as well as it is thelibrary’s. First, the IR will be a powerful documen-tation system to register (all) the works andintellectual output of the academic departments,or in this case the documents and records producedby administrative units. Joint Information SystemsCommittee (JISC) even reported that IRs ‘‘areincreasingly expected to act as corporate informa-tion management tools (records management andcontent management systems) and data sharingplatforms (e.g. for the re-use of research data andlearning objects’’ (Poynder, 2006, p. 15). This iswhere the boundaries between libraries andarchives are starting to blur, a topic that I will notexplore any further in this discussion. Second,having more content in the IR will increase visibilityof the academic department and/or administrativeunit to the campus communities as well as to thesociety. It could prove to be an elegant andpowerful marketing campaign for academic depart-ments to attract prospective students and build agood image in the society. Johnson (2002) agreedwith this assessment when he suggested that an‘‘automatic’’ by-product of an IR is increasedvisibility of the content creators or owners, as wellas the library and the university as a whole.
Although I believe that all the above approachesare adequate to ensure a successful IR implementa-tion, I would encourage libraries to do more with IRbeyond digital content and digital library develop-ment. However for the sake of the flow ofdiscussion, I will elaborate this topic in the sectionabout expanding the libraries’ influence in the
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society. Let us continue the discussion by talkingabout content management in Desa Informasi.
Content management in Desa Informasi
A locally-developed system—called New SPEK-TRA—is utilized to provide content managementfunctionalities. It is a windows-based applicationutilizing Microsoft Access as the database. TheDigital Collection Processing (Cataloging) Module(Fig. 2) implements expanded Dublin Core as themetadata set to catalog digitized or born-digitaldocuments. The module is in fact only one ofseveral modules available. Others are the (Tradi-tional) Collection Processing Module, CirculationModule, OPAC Module, and Operator ManagementModule. The (Traditional) Collection ProcessingModule is used to catalog physical resources (booksand audio visual materials). The Circulation Modulemanages the check-in and check-out of librarymaterials, and other circulation functions. TheOPAC Module has the capability to search thetraditional and digital collections using the sameuser interface. This paper only elaborates theDigital Collection Processing Module of New SPEK-TRA and the web-based OPAC called iSPEKTRA.
The Dublin Core has been expanded to accom-modate the needs to manage digital content to usethem as learning resources as well as for thepurpose of documentation (digital preservation). Ithas also been adapted to accommodate localneeds. For example, each student’s thesis docu-ment is broken down into several PDF files based onthe chapters of the documents to reduce theindividual PDF file size. It needs to be done toaccommodate the low Internet bandwidth in
Figure 2 Digital collection processing (c
Indonesia. Each record could hold one or moredigital objects/resources in various file formats.Detailed discussion of the Dublin Core metadata setimplementation in New SPEKTRA is beyond thescope of this paper.
Digital objects/resources in Desa Informasi arecategorized into various themes and sub-themes,which have also been accommodated by theexpanded Dublin Core metadata set. The categor-ization enables us to build thematic (digital)collections. This feature enables us to select anexotic name that defines the ‘‘character’’ of eachcollection. This categorization will also be veryuseful for the (future) browsing feature of theOPAC, which will provide users with more alter-native methods in their information seeking en-deavours.
Desa Informasi currently holds a total of19,874,883,478 bytes (almost 20Gbytes) of digitalobjects. Table 1 provides the breakdown of thetotal number. The 2004/2005 Petra ChristianUniversity Library Annual Report recorded morethan half a million pages accessed between 01September 2004 and 31 August 2005.
Further breakdown based on types of documentsyields Table 2.
Users can access the digital collections usingiSPEKTRA—the web-based OPAC—which is avail-able in two flavours: the universal search interfaceand the specialized search interface. The universalsearch interface enables us to search (and in thefuture browse) all the digital collections availablein Desa Informasi (Figs. 3 and 4).
The OPAC has the Basket (Cart) function, whichallow users to ‘‘drop in’’ resources into it whilethey are ‘‘shopping’’ for more resources. Thestored search results can then be saved, emailed,or printed. Users can view the digital object(s)
ataloging) module of New SPEKTRA.
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Table 1 Breakdown of Desa Informasi by contributing units.
Collection name/theme No. of records No. of digital objects Total size (bytes)
Digital Theses 1,910 17,715 19,229,623,871eDIMENSI 256 256 67,410,066Petra iPoster 46 46 138,663,215Petra @rt Gallery 39 200 250,574,891Surabaya Memory 65 195 188,611,435Petra Chronicle 0 0 0
Total 2,316 18,412 19,874,883,478
Table 2 Breakdown of Desa Informasi by type of document.
Collection name/theme Text Image Moving image (video) Animation Misc.
Digital Theses 17,769,768,775 947,700,560 352,845,128 20,966,952 138,342,456eDIMENSI 67,410,066 0 0 0 0Petra iPoster 0 138,663,215 0 0 0Petra @rt Gallery 6574 258,568,317 0 0 0Surabaya Memory 0 188,611,435 0 0 0Petra Chronicle 0 0 0 0 0
Total 17,837,185,415 1,533,543,527 352,845,128 20,966,952 138,342,456
Figure 3 Universal search interface of iSPEKTRA.
Figure 4 The (future) browse feature of iSPEKTRA.
L. Toong Tjiek128
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contained in each record by clicking on the ‘‘De-tail’’ button, which opens up a ‘‘Resource’s Detail’’window (Fig. 5).
The specialized search interface (Fig. 6) providesa targeted search that limits the search results in aspecific digital collection. Besides serving as anadded service to users, a specialized search inter-face is also very functional when we build a website‘‘surrounding’’ a particular digital collection as partof our effort in reaching out to the society. Thistopic will be explored further in the discussion ofexpanding the libraries’ influence in the society.
Figure 5 Resource’s detail window of iSPEKTRA.
Figure 6 The specialized search interface
Impacts of Desa Informasi to campuscommunities
The fact that Desa Informasi documents the worksof the campus communities has had positiveimpacts—especially to academic departments (stu-dents and faculties alike)—which are:
�
for
motivation to produce better works, since theworks will be ‘‘immortalized’’ digitally andaccessible by global audience through the Inter-net;
� more awareness of academic integrity andcopyright issues; since everyone can virtuallyread or view the works, any violation ofacademic integrity or copyright infringementwill be much more easily detected by the globalaudience;
� stronger relationship between the library, andacademic departments and administrative units,since the library provides a solution for doc-umenting their works;
� increased visibility of each academic depart-ment, the library, and even the university as awhole.
All the above positive impacts should provideenough incentive for libraries to build IRs. However,I would encourage libraries to go beyond buildingdigital content and DLs/IRs. They could and shouldreach out further to the society. Besides as servicesto the society, the libraries should make use of thisopportunity to expand their sphere of influence andstrengthen their roles in the society.
Surabaya Memory digital collection.
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Expanding the sphere of influence oflibraries through institutionalrepositories
An IR/DL with rich (digital) content that forms thebody of IK of local communities can serve as apowerful tool to expand the libraries’ sphere ofinfluence. Through various campaigns and advocacyprograms that focus on or highlight the IR content,libraries can reach out to audiences that wouldusually fall outside of their traditional users/audience. Libraries can build a website on top ofa particular (thematic) digital collection. Thewebsite can contain educational information thatis relevant to the theme of the featured digitalcollection. For example, a website has beendeveloped for Surabaya Memory collection. Thesite features various information on the history onSurabaya city, lists of historical/cultural sites, listsof historical events of the city, and other educa-tional information that encourages the awarenessof the society to appreciate their own historicaland cultural heritage, and thus encourages the
Figure 8 Combining IRs with onsite
Figure 7 Representation of digital collection as the corefor educational information available in a website.
society to help preserving the IK heritage. Anotherwebsite has also been created for Digital Thesescollection. It is still in its early stage with only aspecialized search interface available. It is plannedthat the website will be populated with informationthat educates the society on the importance ofacademic integrity, copyright issues, resources tohelp students with their theses writing, and otherrelevant information. Imagine the digital collectionas the core—equipped with the specialized searchinterface—with the various educational informa-tion (represented in the figure as A–E) surroundingit (Fig. 7).
The libraries—especially in developing countrieswhere Internet access is still considered a luxur-y—can further reach out to the society byconducting offline/onsite (or even coupled withonline) exhibitions and other community outreachprograms and activities (Fig. 8). For example,Petra@rt Gallery holds regular exhibitions in oroutside the library throughout the year, featuringworks of art with local themes (promoting IK oflocal communities). Surabaya Memory holds regularphoto exhibitions every May (the anniversary ofSurabaya city) featuring its collection of old photosof Surabaya. It also holds regular Heritage Walkthroughout the year, offering the society a chanceto experience the history and culture of the oldsections of the city. The possibilities are endlesswhen we go beyond digital content and DLs/IRs.One might notice here that the community out-reach programs and activities mentioned above arestarting to mimic what a museum would do, butthat is a topic for another discussion.
The campaigns and advocacy programs will raisethe awareness of local communities to appreciatetheir IK and heritage. This will encourage interests todocument and preserve their IK and heritage, which
community outreach programs.
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in the end will help libraries to develop the contentof their IRs/DLs. This will lead to the availability of ahigh number of digitized IK in IRs/DLs—accessiblethrough the Internet—that will attract global users toexploit them for the advancement of art, science,and technology. This process will form channels forthe dissemination of IK.
It is obvious that besides playing an importantrole in the preservation and dissemination of IK,DLs/IRs hold promises of exciting future since DLs/IRs provide new and exciting avenue for libraries toengage the society in a much broader roles andscope. Lynch suggests this also when he said that ‘‘amajor direction’’ for DLs/IRs ‘‘is connecting andintegrating digital libraries with broader individual,group and societal activities’’ (Lynch, 2005b, p. 6).
Conclusion
Based on the issues this discussion has raised andthe experience in developing Desa Informasi, it canbe concluded that:
�
digitization, digital libraries, and thematicallydeveloped digital collections do add ‘‘appeal’’ toindigenous knowledge, significantly increaseinterests for any initiative for the documenta-tion and preservation of indigenous knowledge; � digital content/resources development of adigital library provides digital ‘‘preservation’’of IK—including historical and cultural herita-ge—of local communities, thus preserving theircollective memories;
� digital libraries provide channels for the dis-semination of IK of local communities to globalaudience, thus securing the preservation of IK,besides transforming local communities fromconsumer of information/knowledge into produ-cer of information/knowledge;
�
digital content/resources development of adigital library yields positive impacts to localcampus communities; and � digital libraries can serve as powerful tools forlibraries to reach out to, expand their sphere ofinfluence, and strengthen their roles in thesociety.
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