Secretary General M. Guntur Hamzah opening a focus group discussion on “E-Book and Digital Library Management in the Constitutional Court,” Tuesday (19/11) in Jakarta. Photo by Humas MK/M. Nur.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—Constitutional Court (MK) Secretary General M. Guntur Hamzah expressed his full support for the focus group discussion on “E-Book and Digital Library Management in the Constitutional Court” that will take place on November 19-20, 2019 at the opening of the event on Tuesday (19/11/2019) in Jakarta.

"Today library management is no longer carried out conventionally, manually, or physically. [It] is now ICT-based. Like it or not, we are in the industrial era 4.0 that requires speed, accuracy, order of services in managing everything, including the library, especially digital libraries, even virtual libraries," Guntur said to the participants.

Guntur dreamed of a time when people entering the library would not see a single [printed] book, but only sofas, coffee maker, paintings that improve the mood. "But when we need a reference, we just take out an iPad and then open e-books in the library. This is what we mean by the digital library, a library based on ICT. We do not see [printed] books in libraries, catalogs, et cetera," said Guntur.

Guntur said the FGD on "E-book and Digital Library Management in the Constitutional Court" was an effort to change the current paradigm of library management even though in practice the culture and mindset of the people cannot be avoided. "Many people find it difficult to avoid carrying books. There\'s even pride in carrying a book. To look intellectual. On campus, the more lecturers who carry books, the more authoritative they look. This means that there are many reasons for people to maintain physical books," said Guntur.

"In the future, we need references faster and it is impossible for us to read books as a whole. We [want to] immediately see the contents, list of the contents of the book. We want to make it a reference. If accuracy and accountability are the goals, e-books are the answer. We can\'t to look into piles of books for a study, a review, to write a paper, and so on. We need the substance for reference, not the physical form," said Guntur before the librarians of ministries and institutions as well as structural and functional officials of the Constitutional Court.

Acting Head of the Center for Research, Case Review, and Library Management Wiryanto said that the libraries of the ministries and institutions are work partners of the Constitutional Court library or friends of the Court. "We will continue to commit to providing support for the smooth implementation of the roles and functions of the Constitutional Court," said Wiryanto.

Wiryanto said that to be able to contribute to the Court is especially making the library a supporting unit for scientific references needed by the Court to produce quality decisions.

"Then the discussion of the FGD on E-book and Digital Library Management in the Constitutional Court will focus on the use of e-books or electronic books as part of collections of the Constitutional Court library in order to develop a digital library," said Wiryanto. (Nano Tresna Arfana/LA)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti