The History of the National Library of Indonesia: The Bibliographical Borobudur

This paper reviews the history of the Bataviaasche Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, 1778) and its library as a forerunner of the newly established National Library of Indonesia (1980). It attempts to indicate the relations of the society with the scholarly world of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the growth of the library through its vicissitudes. While this period has been thoroughly covered in Dutch publications, very little has been produced in English; this paper brings the history forward with an account of the creation of the new National Library in the context of its postcolonial heritage and the problems facing such institutions in the developing world. The new institution is likened to the historic Buddhist shrine of Borobudur, recently restored to grandeur through wide international support. A plea is extended for similar international assistance in the conservation of the holdings of the library's inheritance.