About the Jakarta Office
The Library of Congress Office, Jakarta, Indonesia, acquires a variety of materials from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The office's mission is to enrich the research collections of the Library of Congress and other research libraries with the wealth of bibliographic production from these countries. The Jakarta office exists to overcome the challenges of acquiring research materials from Southeast Asia.
In 1963, the Library of Congress Office, Jakarta, Indonesia, was opened. Today, the Jakarta office serves as the regional center for Southeast Asia and has suboffices in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila; and collection arrangements with Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, and Vietnam. More than two million pieces of research materials have been acquired for the Library of Congress and participants in the Cooperative Acquisitions Program for Southeast Asia (CAP-SEA). The Jakarta office staff of forty acquires, catalogs, and preserves publications from this region. The office also provides reference and information assistance for the U.S. Congress (via the Library's Congressional Research Service), occasionally for program participants, and also for colleagues in the American Embassy who support LC's work.
The Jakarta office collects a wide range of materials dealing with Southeast Asia including monographs, maps, nonprint materials, sound recordings, videos, pamphlets, magazines, newspapers, gazettes, and electronic media. The office has recently started collecting grey literature documenting the growth of civil societies, local music in minority languages in Laos and Indonesia, early works dealing with the Islamic kingdoms of Pattani, environmental works, and works by and about Chinese in Southeast Asia.
Mission Statements
Last Updated: August 30, 2011
