The Consal members` visit was made following the 2nd Consal Executive Board Meeting which took place April 19 to 21, 2011, Zulfikar Zen, vice chairman of the Indonesian Librarians Association, said.
He said, their North Sumatra visit was to observe the development of libraries in the province.
The Consal participants came from Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar as well as two observers from Timor Leste`s library, Zulfikar said.
"The participants will share knowledge and experiences about the library systems in other countries," he said.
Zulfikar said , many participants wanted to know the ancient collections and the public service announcements contained in North Sumatra libraries.
In addition, they were also amazed by the digital library collection which had 1,000 titles and 16 thousand entries which can be accessed anywhere.
Zulfikar who is also as a lecturer at the Department of Library and Information Science, University of Indonesia said Consal was set up in 1970 in Singapore and aims to foster cooperation among all Southeast Asian librarians.
The membership of Consal is commonly called by the Consal executive board from each country consisting of three persons.
Indonesia`s membership consists of the head of the National Library, the chairman and secretary general of the Indonesian Libraries Association.
"Every three years Consal holds a General Conference in turns, and Indonesia hosted a general conference in 1976 in Bandung and in 1990 in Jakarta," Zulfikar said.
The next General Conference would be held in Bali in May 2012 and opened by the President, attended by a thousand librarians.
"Our visit in Medan is a form of preparatory activities leading to the 15th General Conference in Bali 2012," Zulfikar said.
The theme of the general conference would be "National Heritage, Maintenance and Deployment."
According to him, a lot of local cultures, folklore and literature had been stored and never published to the public. So this should be appointed and empowered again for national cultural wealth.
Meanwhile, head of Library, Archives and Documentation Board of North Sumatra province, Nurdin Pane added, the can have a positive impact for the community and in particular give motivation to the North Sumatra librarians to grow better in the future.
"We hope this activity can be a cultural visit and can motivate the growth of culture likes to read," he added.
(T.KR-LWA/HAJM/A014)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
