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Indonesia Electronic LibraryDesign Plan for Supporting aDistance Learning EnvironmentLamhot S. P. Simamora a & Firman Gunawan aa Divisi RisTI PT TELKOM , IndonesiaPublished online: 12 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Lamhot S. P. Simamora & Firman Gunawan (2001) IndonesiaElectronic Library Design Plan for Supporting a Distance Learning Environment,Journal of Library Administration, 32:1-2, 361-369, DOI: 10.1300/J111v32n01_11

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Indonesia Electronic Library Design Planfor Supporting a DistanceLearning Environment

Lamhot S. P. SimamoraFirman Gunawan

Divisi RisTI PT TELKOM Indonesia

SUMMARY. Indonesia is answering the need for a more skilled workforce by using distance education and technology to reach more stu-dents. This paper describes the development of an electronic library tosupport these students by member libraries of the Indonesia DistanceLearning Network.

KEYWORDS. Distance education, electronic library, library services,Indonesia

INTRODUCTION

Indonesia is entering the global era that requires qualified humanresources in order to be able to live and compete with others. The longcrises that Indonesia is facing now are pushing us to produce skilledhuman resources. Much still has to be done in the effort to develop theintellectual life of the Indonesians in order to be able to survive in theglobal era full of challenges. One approach for achieving this goal isDistance Learning, that is, utilising technology to cover more students.The number of distance learning providers is increasing in Indone-

[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: ‘‘Indonesia Electronic Library Design Plan for Supporting a DistanceLearning Environment.’’ Simamora, Lamhot S. P., and Firman Gunawan. Co-published simultaneously inJournal of Library Administration (The Haworth Information Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.)Vol. 32, No. 1/2, 2001, pp. 361-369; and: Off-Campus Library Services (ed: Anne Marie Casey) TheHaworth Information Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2001, pp. 361-369.

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sia with some of them joining the Indonesia Distance Learning Net-work (IDLN). As this number increased, the need for learning re-sources increased too. The learning resources may be used as acommon resource and can easily be accessed without leaving home orworkplace. One of these learning resources is the electronic library.This electronic library will integrate IDLN members libraries and

offer library service in Technology for Distance Training and Educa-tion in a standard codification and interface. The electronic library willinclude many kinds of information such as references (books, maga-zines, journals, bulletins, papers, etc.), library transactions, librarymembers, public service, library statistics and partners. Security isalso another aspect to be concerned about when designing this elec-tronic library.There are two big teams involved in designing this library. The first

team is assigned to designing and building the application, while thesecond team is assigned to managing and maintaining the electroniclibrary system. We realise much data takes a big role in building thislibrary. All IDLNmembers joining in this library should have a uniformdatabase structure. In the library transaction process we already defineda 3-step scenario for users: searching, transaction and delivering.Going toward the implementation of this electronic library, we de-

fined two phases. The first phase will concentrate on designing thetechnology (hardware and software), building applications (user classi-fications, data structure), coding and data entry. The second phase willconcentrate on building the system: procurement, installation and test-ing. This second phase will be built step by step. The first installationwill be done in the IDLN head office in one Local Area Network, thenthe Wide Area Network will be expanded to IDLN member libraries.The next phase for our electronic library is creating partnerships

with other institutions or libraries in order to have larger learningresources. By having this integrated electronic library, the distancelearner may improve his/her skills and he/she can overcome culture,economic and geographic problems, which are still big problems forachieving better skills and education in Indonesia.

TELKOM DISTANCE LEARNING

Developing a Digital and Virtual Library system is dependent onthe Distance Learning Development. And as we sought to support

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Lamhot S. P. Simamora and Firman Gunawan 363

teaching and learning through distance learning, we need a learningresource center that can be accessed anytime and anywhere. The virtu-al library that developed in PT TELKOM is intended to support Dis-tance Learning. TELKOM, especially Divisi RisTI, has developedthree major distance learning technologies: Video conference basedISDN, Desktop Conference, and Web. Indonesia has an associationconsisting of organizations which have a great interest in DistanceLearning Development. It is called IDLN (Indonesia Distance Learn-ing Network). TELKOM also joined in this Organization. IDLN isconcerned about the Library System in Indonesia. In Indonesia, li-braries are not yet as good as in other countries. There are manyconventional libraries with a conventional system. So, to migrate tovirtual or digital can be done as quickly as we want, but we can’tignore that the technology is growing faster and faster. That’s whyIDLN and also PT TELKOM are trying to develop a system thatbridges the technology and the library.

TELKOM DIGITAL LIBRARY

Information and telecommunication technology is growing so fastthat it changes the way people live. Because of this progress, theresearch and information technology division of PT TELKOM INDO-NESIA (Divisi RisTI) has to continually rise to new innovative effortsfor utilizing the technology to improve employee knowledge and theworkforce. Those efforts are an absolute requirement for the organiza-tion, which always wants to improve the quality of human resources.Distance learning application development almost cannot be sepa-

rated from any learning resources that will always needed by thelearner. Because of that reason, the progress in distance learning willalways be followed by the development of learning resources thatsupport distance learning applications. One of the most important ofthese is the information center where the learner or user can easily getthe information that they are looking for or need to find. With theimpact of information and telecommunication technology growth orintegration, the information that was expensive and difficult to get inthe past, is now very easy to obtain. But in order for the learner or userto find what they want among the millions of bytes of information, weneed to classify those facts. With proper classification, people will notbe confused when they look for information. Starting from this point,

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to support distance learning that develops in the PT TELKOM Indone-sian environment and to make people find the information they wanteasier, the RisTI Division will develop a concept about the LibraryInformation System and Learning Resource Center. There are twoconcepts that will be developed: First, the Web-based Library Infor-mation System, and second, an information center where the informa-tion can be put and collected in digital format, which we call theVirtual Library.

WEB-BASED LIBRARY INFORMATION SYSTEM

The library information system developing objective is to give ef-fective, easy library information services to customers of library ser-vices. With this system people do not need to come to the library. Theyjust need to sit in front of their computer and access the library infor-mation Web sites. Besides that, the library provider is easy to integrateinto other Web sites (Figure 1).Some important aspects should be considered in a Web-based li-

brary information system. Those aspects are services given by thelibrary, data management, and security. Services are important for

CustomerLibrary

InformationSystem

Operator

DATABASE

Security

Electronic Procedural

Physical

ContentCustomer DataBase

NameCustomer

Employee Public

BOOK

AudioVisual

ElectronicMagazine Journal

Newspaper

FIGURE 1. Library Information System RisTI Division Concept

StatusArticle

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Lamhot S. P. Simamora and Firman Gunawan 365

library operations. Through this aspect we hope that every informationneed of the customer will be fulfilled. This service will involve who isbeing served, who is the server, and what kind of medium will beutilized to bridge the client and the server. The services that will beprovided in the Web-based library information system are report ser-vices, membership services, customer education services, promotionservices, and production.Data management consists of two aspects: First, customer data man-

agement and second, content management. Library customers should becategorized in some classification so this will be easier for the administra-tor of the library. Besides that, we have to consider content managementin the library. Content will consist of the book, magazine, newspaper,article, journal, and audio-visual collections, and others. Data security isone of the important aspects that should never forgotten. Data securityconsists of three aspects: physical security, procedural security, and elec-tronic security. Security is intended for libraries to avoid mismanagementand the security tools themselves can be the barcode system, SecurityGate, ID Card, regulation, anti-virus usage, internal and external buildingsecurity systems, and others.Year 2000 was the year planned for the distance learning program

take-off by Divisi RisTI PT TELKOM. We have to provide an infra-structure that will support the environment. That infrastructure, besidethe distance learning system infrastructure, is also the networking. Tostrengthen the networking Divisi RisTI then joins to Distance Learn-ing in Indonesia called IDLN (Indonesia Distance Learning Network).This organization has a regular meeting every month to discuss prog-ress in every member environment. IDLN even sets up an internation-al seminar every year. IDLN also sets up some workshops and train-ing. One of the workshops is about the electronic library. In thatworkshop we hope that every IDLN member will build their ownelectronic library. And after that the library information system ofevery member should integrate their library so we will have a bignetwork in the IDLN environment. The Divisi RisTI tries to develop alibrary information system in the RisTI environment, then integratesinto the library in the IDLN environment.

VIRTUAL LIBRARYThe virtual library is defined as the information center which col-

lects information in a digital format. The virtual library is the library

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that never exists physically, but this library can collect or provideservices provided by a conventional library.Beside developing a Web-Based library information system, Divisi

RisTI is trying to develop a virtual library which includes data andcollections in a digital format. We can utilize the virtual library as thesupport system in the Web learning environment. We identify someaspects considered important in building the Virtual Library.Data collecting and data processing are the aspects needed to classi-

fy the data in a regular structure. Data will be collected in severalformats. Data consist of article, e-journal, electronic book, electronicmagazine, white paper, audio-visual, presentation in MS-Word, PDF,HTML, PowerPoint, and other formats. After collecting data, we dodata classification. Resouce data is classified according to authorname, presenter name if the file is the presentation file, event if we getthe information from any event like a seminar or symposium, or ac-cording to the topics and title. The data will be put in a data basesystem. To connect the system to the user we need some interfacebetween the operator or administrator, the user or customer, and thesystem itself. Because of it we have to make several facilities like theregistration facility, services, support, searching facility, and others(Figure 2).Figure 3 describes the information searching flowchart in the virtual

library. From the simple figure we can see that the flow starts from thesearching process with the search engine facility. Users or customerscan utilize the search engine facility to find the information they needbased on topic, title, author, event, and others. After they pass thatprocess and find what they are looking for, there will be a transactionprocess between the operator and user. After the two parties agree,then the delivery process begins. The delivery process is also on-linebecause the collection in the virtual library is put in the digital formatso we can deliver the collection in the digital way.The basic configuration of our virtual library is described in Figure

4. From the provider side we should have an access control facility toauthorize the customer or user. The provider also should have a searchengine facility to make it easier for the user to access and look forsome information. To classify data, we should have an excellent con-tent management system. And for operational needs, the providershould have an operator and administrator.

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FIGURE 2. Data Collecting and Processing

White Paper Article Journal Presentation

ElectronicMagazine

Author BasedData Base

Data Classification

Topics andTitle Based Event Based

IntegratedInformation

PresenterBased

HUMAN RESOURCES

In order to develop these two concepts we need technical prepara-tion involving a feasibility study, comparative study, project team, andexperts. Because of that we should divide human resources into twoteams: First, the developer team and second, the operational team. Forthe developer team we will need:

S System Designer and AnalystS Software EngineerS Hardware EngineerS ProgrammerS Database ExpertS Network Expert

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FIGURE 3. Global Concept of Information Searching

Searching

Search engine

AuthorBased

Title orTopicBased

Information

Transaction

Delivery

EventBased

PresenterBased

FIGURE 4. Basic ConfigurationAdministrator

Data Base

Operator

Search Engine AccessControl

User

And for operational requirements we will need:

S LibrarianS AdministratorS Marketing and PRS TechnicianS Operator

We hope that the Web-based library information system and virtuallibrary can be integrated so the TELKOM distance learning environ-ment and others will have an integrated resource learning center withhigh capability.

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Lamhot S. P. Simamora and Firman Gunawan 369

IDLN ELECTRONIC LIBRARY PLAN

IDLN had a meeting in February 1999 to discuss Digital LibraryDesign for the IDLN environment. In that meeting the members triedto define the Digital Library concept that will be adopted by all IDLNmembers. IDLN members agreed that to build a great system like thiswe have to pass two big phases.In the first phase we must organise technical specifications includ-

ing hardware and software, build a customisable application if wecan’t find any application in the market, handle classification andcodification, prepare the human resources, and prepare the technicaldocument and application manual, system evaluation, entry data. Allwill do this in each organization. The second phase integrates all thelibrary systems into a network.

CONCLUSION

We hope that Web-Based library information system and virtuallibrary development will support the distance learning process in theTELKOM environment. And TELKOM membership in IDLN ishoped to give a new spirit or new embryo to build library informationsystem networking that will support the national distance learningenvironment.In the first step we will build a digital library in the PT TELKOM

environment. Especially for the Web-based library information sys-tem, we will start from the Divisi RisTI environment then broaden thenetwork to other division libraries (particularly the training division).After that we will integrate our network with other IDLN memberlibrary systems.For the virtual library we will start to collect the data, processing,

and classification in the Divisi RisTI environment. Then we will de-sign a data management system, and finally we can create a purevirtual library.

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