LIBRARY OF CONGRESS JAKARTA

About Library of Congress Jakarta

In 1963, the Library of Congress office in Jakarta was opened. Today, Jakarta serves as the regional center for Southeast Asia and has offices in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Rangoon. There are also collection arrangements for Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Vietnam and Timor Leste (East Timor). Over 2,000,000 pieces of research material have been acquired for the Library of Congress and the Cooperative Acquisitions Program for Southeast Asia (CAPSEA) participants. The office acquires, catalogs, and preserves publications from this region, including electronic resources. The offices provide assistance for the US Congress, particularly the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and news updates to relevant foreign affairs staff (SFRC and HFAC), Department of State and on occasion provides reference and assistance to program participants.

The Library of Congress Jakarta is one of six overseas offices administered by the African/Asian Acquisitions and Overseas Operations Division (OvOp) of the Library of Congress (LC) The staff acquire, catalog, preserve, and distribute library and research materials from countries where such materials are essentially unavailable through conventional acquisitions methods. Jakarta also provides to selective staff of the Congress, Congressional Research Service, and other U.S. government staff current regional information. This website is primarily to support the participants in the Southeast Asian Cooperative Acquisitions Program (CAPSEA).

The Library of Congress Jakarta collects a wide range of analog and digital materials from Southeast Asia. Some of the materials collected include monographs, maps, non-print materials, sound recordings, videos, pamphlets, magazines, newspapers, gazettes, and electronic media. The office has also started collecting grey literature documenting the growth of civil societies, local languages, religion, environment and works about the Chinese in Southeast Asia. The office also selectively archives digital data from the region's national elections.

Cooperative Acquisitions Program (CAPSEA)

Library of Congress Jakarta coordinates the Cooperative Acquisitions Program (CAPSEA) and manages acquiring materials from the following countries: Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, and Vietnam. The goal of the CAPSEA legislative mandated cost recovery program is to provide selectively valuable research analog and digital materials to participating academic institutions and public libraries on a cost-recovery basis.

We collect and provide bibliographic control materials in more than ten major languages about many different topics. The topics range from education, religion, anthropology, sociology, economics, government and politics, history and current events, geography and the environment, science and technology, literature, medicine, agriculture, to law.

We welcome new CAPSEA participants worldwide. For further information including joining the cost-recovery CAPSEA program, please contact jakarta@loc.gov.

Participants Section