The litany of suffering is still heard but not louder: A case study of clinical supervision to school libraries in Indonesia’s four provinces

Abstract

From 2002 through 2004, the National Library of Indonesia distributed block grants to 250 school libraries in the province of Central Java scattered in 10 districts, 150 school libraries in West Nusa Tenggara for 7 districts, 125 school libraries in South Sumatera in 5 districts while in the province of Bangka Belitung only to one municipality covering 25 school libraries. For three years, a school library which serves only one school received a block grant of 19 million rupiahs or approximately US $2000, while (multiple) school library which serves two or more schools received 29 million rupiahs or around US 3200 all for books. Beside that, there are trainings for library staffs conducted at the province capital as well as at the districts and supervision from the National Library. After three year implementation, the National Library set up two independent teams to evaluate the school library performance, block grant awardees. The first team consists of five consultant on education and librarianship while the second one is an independent consultant bureau. Among the findings are the rise of book usages among school children, rising initiatives among teacher cum teacher in charge of library to correlate the library activities with the class programme and communities’ activities, the provision of separate building for school library especially in South Sumatera. However there anxieties on the continuation of theschool libraries after the project is over, as not all grant-receiving-districts have enough budget to provide finances for the school library operations after the project is over.