Ana Soraya: The preservation of Nusantara manuscripts in Indonesia.

Indonesia is a country of a thousand islands , consisting of 33 provinces with 136 local languages. Every province has different culture and habitation. Diversity of cultures, languages, and letters gave many influenced on varieties of Indonesian (Nusantara) manuscripts. Currently Nusantara manuscripts are still found in several places in each province, such as special libraries (ancient libraries), museums, private libraries, and collectors. In addition any foreign institutions hold Nusantara manuscripts, for example libraries in the Netherlands (Leiden), USA (Library of Congress), Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore.

More than 10.000 exemplars have been preserved by the National Library. They are written on palm leaf, wood, leather, parchment, and saeh paper (Ind. Daluang).

The National Library has preserved the manuscript in two major ways, in their original form and in digital form. We preserve the manuscripts as physical artifacts and as data by media transfer to digital or microfilm master. Conservation in original form is done only by the National Library and National Archive.

Our main problem is the lack of overview of the existence of manuscripts as they are its spread in every area, private ownership is here a major problem. People in Indonesia still consider manuscripts as sacred things and they may be placed in remote areas so that when we work on conservation in remote areas we have limited equipment, time and imported materials (Japanese tissue).

Another problem is the fact that many foreigners are keen to purchase manuscripts, which we then have no knowledge of. There is a need to map this territory better.