APSIG newsletter no. 58: July 2005

Co-operating with Timor-Leste: ideas for good development practice: conference report

Anya Dettman

I attended the conference 'Co-operating with Timor-Leste : ideas for good development practice' on 17-18 June in Melbourne. The conference was opened by the Prime Minister of East Timor, Mari Alkatiri. This conference was more focused on practical aid projects than on academic issues, and was extremely popular, in fact oversubscribed (about 300 people registered, but many more just turned up, including many from overseas and from East Timor itself, and the organisers simply didn't have the heart to turn anyone away). The single copy of the NLA East Timor bibliography which I took to the conference was of great interest, with many people leafing through it and jotting down bibliographical details. The Australia-East Timor Association, which had a bookstall there, even expressed an interest in publishing it.

I was previously involved, along with Marie Sexton, with the Canberra branch of the Friends of the Library of the East Timor National University (UNTL), and I was particularly interested in attending the session on the library sector in East Timor. Lyle French gave a presentation on the UNTL Library as a case study of the reconstruction of a library service after almost complete destruction. Patti Manolis gave a fascinating overview of the Timorese library sector based on her observations from a study tour funded by the State Library of Victoria (her report should soon be on their website). One of her highlights included the story of a small community on Atauro Island (off Timor's north coast) who set up their own library and ran a mobile book service with donkeys and canoes. Undeterred by the lack of books in Tetum, the library staff promptly wrote and printed their own. Unfortunately they have been evicted from the premises they were using, but undaunted they have begun fundraising to build their own library building. Alarico de Sena, an Australian Timorese library technician, described the training he provided to East Timorese library staff in 2003/2004. Although an East Timorese Library Association has recently been established, along with an elementary library technicians training course, the library sector has to cope with very low levels of IT literacy and basic library skills. There is no established course for librarians and few have any knowledge of library management, including budgeting and planning. There is as yet no national library, no legal deposit scheme (so much of the printed material currently being produced in East Timor may be lost forever), no national bibliographical database or sharing of catalogue records, and only a rudimentary public library service.

During the subsequent discussion amongst the librarians present, I raised the issue of the lack of national co-ordination in Australia of assistance to Timor's libraries. There are numerous but fragmented interest groups involved with supporting Timorese libraries, but usually only focusing on particular libraries, with the result that some (such as the UNTL Library and the Xanana Gusmao Reading Room) receive a great deal of funding and training while others such as the one on Atauro receive none, and more difficult issues such as the need to establish a national library seem to be avoided. A national register of those willing to provide training and support (and the types of support and any special skills able to be provided) should be created and matched to a comprehensive list of Timorese libraries or communities who need libraries, as well as the 'broader picture' of what needs to be done throughout the whole library sector.

I also acquired from the Australia-East Timor Association a list of publications about East Timor which they sell and identified an excellent history of East Timor, Timor Loro Sae : 500 years by Australian author Geoff Gunn, which the NLA does not appear to have yet, possibly because it was published in Macau in 1999.

Anya's report on the East Timour Studies Symposium, held in Melbourne on 16 June, will appear in a later issue.