Contributor: ANJ | Editor: Supriyono
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed on behalf of ÖйúPÕ¾ (UIII) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) marking the official partnership between the two parties in sharing the collections of academic resources.
The signing ceremony was represented by UIII’s Rector Prof. Komaruddin Hidayat, and CSIS Executive Director Yose Rizal Damuri on Tuesday, March 21, 2023, at UIII’s campus in Depok, West Java.
The MoU entails a number of agreements including the establishment of CSIS Corner on the second floor of the university’s central library where it would host a collection of 13,000 books of the CSIS under the lending scheme for a period of ten years. Notwithstanding, this will become a subject of reviews and evaluation in every five years.
In addition, the MoU also covers the exchange of journal publications either those published by CSIS such as Indonesian Quarterly, or by UIII such as Islamic Studies Review, Muslim Politics Review, Muslim Business and Economics Review, and Muslim Education Review.
CSIS Executive Director Yose Rizal Damuri expressed his pleasure with the partnership, saying that more collections of books are expected to be placed at the UIII main library in the future.
"We are very pleased to have put our collection [at UIII]. There are still some of our collections that we can try to review again. Are they valuable enough to put here? Because coincidentally, the library [of CSIS] has existed for 50 years, [and thus] the collections are quite large, and we feel that the library we have can't operate as before, with fewer people coming," he said.
Following this collaboration, Mr, Damuri expects that the UIII central library will be accessible not only to the UIII community but also to the general public who are interested in experiencing existing knowledge. In addition, he also hopes that the MoU could be a good start for CSIS and UIII for further collaboration in other scientific activities in the future.
Rector Prof. Komaruddin Hidayat and the Director of the UIII Central Library, Dr. Phil. Syafiq Hasyim thanked CSIS for this collaboration, saying that it has encouraged UIII to find other donors to deposit their collection to the university.
Aiming to be a research-based university, the availability of academic sources and reference is vital for UIII. Thus, having a partnership with CSIS is really helpful for the university to cater to the needs of academic reference for the UIII scholar communities.