National Library head Muhammad Syarif Bando officialised Sleman District Head Kustini Sri Purnomo as Madam Literacy of Sleman at Yogyakarta on Monday.
Purnomo affirmed that this inauguration was a mandate for motivating her as well as the related regional apparatus to strive to improve people’s literacy, especially in Sleman District.
“Literacy is an essential factor in the efforts to build a knowledgeable, innovative, and creative society with character,” she affirmed.
The district head said in line with the goal of digital-based transformation echoed by the National Library, the Sleman District Government has been progressing to improve digital and community literacy.
“The Sleman administration, through the Sleman District Library and Archives Office, has provided several digital-based services, such as Sleman e-books, the web-based library service (opac.slemankab.go.id), the SOS (Sleman One Search) network, LDR (Literacy at Home) and services on social media,” she pointed out.
Meanwhile, National Library head Muhammad Syarif Bando said that literacy is not about love for reading.
“Literacy is not limited to spelling letters into words, words into sentences, or sentences into paragraphs,” he said.
According to Bando, literacy has at least five levels: learning to read, write characters and calculate; the ability to access state-of-the-art science; the ability to understand implied meanings from the explicit ones; creating innovation and creativity; and the ability to produce goods and services.
An agreement was also inked between the National Library and the Sleman District Government.
Attendees at the event series themed, “Library Transformation to Realize the National Digital Ecosystem,” were Education and Culture Attaché at the Indonesian Embassy in Washington D.C., the United States, Prof. Popy Rufaidah, Ph.D.; literacy activist, Dr Muhsin Kalida; and Gadjah Mada University Social and Political Sciences Lecturer Dr Muhamad Sulhan.
Source: Antara News