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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 48| December 2000
Positioning the Fountain of Knowledge
Left to right: Pri Zawiyah Baba, Deputy Director General, National Library of Malaysia, Deborah Woodyard, National Library of Australia, Pri Rashidah Haji Bothassan, A/g CEO, State Library of Sarawak, Pri Margaret Simeng, Senior Manager, Centre for Academic Information Sevices, UNIMAL
Fountains provide an opulent metaphor for the source of all knowledge. So appropriately the theme of the third Digital Library Conference, Positioning the Fountain of Knowledge, had a multi-layered significance. Not only did it address the spread of knowledge by way of the new technologies, it also considered the source of that fountain and the unequal spread of knowledge from a fountain that is clearly sited elsewhere.
The brand new and spectacular Pustaka Negeri Sarawak (the State Library of Sarawak) in the state capital, Kuching, was the venue for the conference. The Library was a gift to the people from the government to celebrate the millennium. The building boasts a number of fountains itself, two outside in the small lake and one by the clear glass staircase in the foyer, a structure worthy of contemplation. Opened on January 1 this year the Library is part of generous government initiatives to develop the K-community and K-economy (the K stands for knowledge) which are considered essential paths for the progress of their country. The Library is designed to rely heavily on the electronic delivery of information to the people of Sarawak.
The first day of the conference focused on management and development of national and international digital resources. Papers discussed initiatives such as the Multimedia Super Corridor run by the Multimedia Development corporation set up by the Malaysian Government, and the National Digital Library Initiative Sistem PERDANA run by the National Library of Malaysia (PNM) and including the state, public and university libraries, and Telecom Malaysia. There were also a number of digitisation projects discussed including a presentation on SCRAN (the Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network) by Professor Bruce Royan.
The education of information professionals and the general public also featured in the conference. Noteworthy points raised included the need to change teaching styles from lecture based to more interactive learning, and the need for providing a more challenging and rewarding career structure for librarians to avoid losing them to other industries.
Despite the water falling not only from fountains but also the start of the rainy season, everyone enjoyed an afternoon of acculturation, reinforcing an appreciation of the cultural reasons we are doing all this work. Conference delegates got in touch with their cultural side at the Sarawak Cultural Village, Cat Museum or visited a jungle wildlife rehabilitation centre to see orang utans.
Another subject the conference explored was the outreach of digital information services. Forget the old book-mobile, they now have fully connected net-mobiles! Mobile Internet Units are a van fitted out with a dozen multimedia PCs to travel out into the rural areas to teach people, particularly children, how to use digital information resources.
Finally the conference covered preservation of digital resources, discussed by Mahfuzah Yusuf from the National Archives of Malaysia and the Australian perspective was given in my paper available online at www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/dw001004.html.
Through this variety of subjects and cultural influences, it is obvious
that Malaysia is consciously making a great effort to ride the digital
wave with the rest of the world. Though the cultural fountain of the Web
seems to flow from the West, the process of acculturating and adapting the
new technologies to the localities in which they are situated will ensure
that the fountain of knowledge provides water for whatever cultures choose
to drink from it.
Deborah Woodyard
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au