A Librarian On the Other Side of the World

Interesting profile of Yeri Nurita, a librarian at the National Library of Indonesia in the Jakarta Globe.

Among other subjects, the interviewer asks her about the sort of problems the library deals with…

“First and foremost is maintenance. It’s really essential to fumigate the books frequently to protect them from insects, but fumigants are scarce and we can only do it once every two years. Second, fungi. Fungi appear due to the humidity inside the library. We can’t afford to keep the air-conditioner running 24 hours a day, but it should been on the whole day to keep the room less humid. Also, security issues — books keep going missing, either from being misplaced or by theft.”