• Index of this issue

No. 97, February 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global pandemic restricting our activity, especially activity with intense and direct interaction. Indonesia's government took action to reduce the number of virus transmissions. One of the government's efforts is establishing regulations to restrict our daily activity called Large-scale Social Restrictions (PSBB). PSBB obliges us to do physical distancing, so librarians in the National Library of Indonesia (NLI) need to adjust the library's regulation with the PSBB regulation. In addition to changing regulations, librarians in NLI need to innovate to keep serving our users with limited interaction.
The National Library of Indonesia has several innovations for library services during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are:

1. I-Pusnas (Digital Library Application for Android and IOS)

< Figure 1. I-Pusnas Mobile Application >

I-Pusnas is a free mobile application for Android and IOS. Users can borrow 1-5 e-books from I-Pusnas for seven days. We have more than 40.000 e-books collected of different genres for our users. I-Pusnas also has a new feature for this pandemic situation, that is Corona Pedia. The Corona Pedia feature has selected information about COVID-19 that can help our users find info about COVID-19. We can keep educating users, especially to increase their awareness of COVID-19 through the mobile application.

2. Subscribed Digital Collections

The National Library of Indonesia tries to educate people and serve the best resources, especially for students, researchers, or any academic purposes through our subscribed digital collections. We have 605.708 titles indigital collections, and users can access all of the subscribed digital collections for free. Users only need to do online registration to be NLI's official members.

< Figure 2. Login Page for e-Resources >

NLI focuses on serving the best resources to support education in Indonesia, especially in literacy. Students and researchers in Indonesia have a lot of electronic resources to support their tasks or research. NLI always provides a big government budget to subscribe to digital collections to support Indonesia's literacy program. These subscribed digital collections can be used for our users' reference in writing, primarily to write about Indonesia's culture. Although the pandemic makes some students or people work from home or study from home, the NLI keeps trying to accompany the educational environment to adapt to a new normal situation. In 2020, we reached up to 253.722 visitors and had 242.194 accesses to our digital collections.

< Figure 3. e-Resources Free Services >

< Figure 4. NLI Subscribed Journals >

This is the view of the e-resources services website. Users can do a simple search or advanced search. Users can also refine their search through the left tabs.

< Figure 5. e-Resources Services Website Interface >

Other than that, the National Library of Indonesia also has special digital services to preserve our culture in Indonesia. Indonesia has so many traditional languages, traditional songs, traditional dances, folklore, history, and cultural or historical assets. Besides collecting all of Indonesia's cultural and historical assets, the National Library of Indonesia also provides all of them as information or knowledge. Users can access all information on collections about Indonesia through our official website http://khastara.perpusnas.go.id. Khastara has 1.792 manuscripts collected and we hope it can be a good resource for people to read or write about Indonesia's culture.

< Figure 6. Digital Manuscript Collection >

3. Online Library Service (By Live Chat and Email)

The National Library of Indonesia minimizes the interaction between librarians and users. But, the NLI also tries to serve our best to our users. So, the NLI has an innovation with Online Library Services/ Reference Service through Live Chat or "Ask a Librarian" service. Users can talk with our librarians and discuss their library/information issues. So, our librarians can keep helping the users, although without direct interaction. Users can also talk with librarians through e-mail.

< Figure 7. How to Access the Ask a Librarian Service >

< Figure 8. Live Chat Service >

4. Webinar

Before the pandemic, the National Library of Indonesia held many library events, like book reviews, talk shows, seminars, etc. We had some events to educate our users and have the users meet with some figures who can motivate them to increase their reading interest and keep the library for their primary information resources. With this situation, we can't hold an event with too many participants, especially indoor events. So, the NLI had many online events through Zoom Cloud Meetings. We also held some webinar events with legislative members, government, activists, and other figures to discuss Indonesia's literacy, reading habits, and library role in Indonesia. They become our speakers to motivate and influence people, especially the young generation, to give more attention to literacy and the library ecosystem in Indonesia. We can reach more than 1.200 participants from Zoom Cloud Meetings, and up to 12.000 viewers of live streaming on YouTube in one event. That means the pandemic is not a hitch for us to keep discussing and sharing knowledge, and the library is always there to support and facilitate knowledge sharing programs. These are examples of our library events during the pandemic.

< Figure 9. Webinar: Socialization of Literacy and Reading Habits >

< Figure 10. Webinar: With Reading Ambassador >

5. National Library of Indonesia in Social Media

The National Library of Indonesia is also active in social media. Social media can be the platform to post some information about our services, collections, events, or any updates. Users can find the NLI on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and also YouTube. We can engage with up to 150.000 followers on Instagram, 80.491 followers and 76.733 likes on Facebook, 32.200 followers on Twitter, and 32.300 subscribers on YouTube. Social media is an effective and efficient way to spread information to some people. The NLI can reach some users through social media, especially the young generation. The NLI's official social media can be another option for users to interact with librarians.

< Figure 11. NLI's Social Media >