Rethinking Role of Small Libraries and

Reading promotion programs in Myanmar

Ye Htet Oo

The paper present at Thailand Conference on Reading 2013

March 21-22, 2013

King Petch Room, Asia Hotel Bangkok

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Rethinking Role of Small Libraries and

Reading promotion programs in Myanmar

Ye Htet Oo

Myanmar is one of the least developing countries in South East Asia. The country was

ruled by military government since 1962. It has various problems such as poverty,

mismanagements, corruptions, oppressions and so on. The country’s situation is demoted into

one of the least developing country as once it was one of the fine cities in South East Asia.

In 2010, the country finished the constitution and in 2012, the country has its election.

Since then, the world started to acknowledge Myanmar’s government and the country started

a new chapter.

The new chapter of the country also gives a lot of hopes for nonprofit organizations. In

certain time, the country did not welcome any student organization or youth organization.

Now, the government is willing meet with all those organization and corporate with lots of

nonprofit organizations to improve the country. As the country is opening up, it is facing a lot of

challenges. The need of the country is the great challenge to everyone. The government, NGO

and local non-profit groups are now working in their perspective ways to help the country.

They play some major roles in making the country into better changes.

As a non-profit library founder and running several projects I am going to discuss how

libraries take part in a country’s new chapter and what will be the challenges.

Here are some sub topics.

1. Libraries in Myanmar

2. Small Libraries: What is small library and what is its role

3. Challenges of establishing small libraries

4. Reading promotion of Tharapar library

5. Mobile library and its future

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Library in Myanmar

Myanmar is located in Southeast Asia and formerly known as Burma. It has a long

history of libraries and reading habits since ancient Bagan dynasty (11th to 13th century A.D). At

this time, monasteries were the center of education and provided all kinds of education. Most

of the libraries and school were somehow related to pagodas and monasteries. The collections

of those libraries were of palm leaf or paper folded manuscripts.

Reading is one of the most favorite activities of Myanmar people. Even in colonial time,

Myanmar libraries were developed. One can be found National Library, academic libraries,

public libraries and special libraries in that era. Libraries were the places where people stayed

and discussed about current news, economics and almost everything. They were the places

where most people hang out and exchanged their point of views.

However, past few decades ago, the military government tried to ban every public

places where people can gather around to avoid unnecessary political uprising. Libraries were

no exception. The library did not receive any proper acknowledge by successive governments.

For instance, national library in Myanmar did not have proper building and it has been moving

from one place to another. Until recently, the government decided to move national library to

Nay Pyi Taw in April 2013. Therefore, people and library patron usually do not know where the

library is and what kind of library services they offer. They are not familiar with library rare

books and good resources. Furthermore, due to certain limited restrictions, library resources are

not allowed to borrow outside. It is closed shelf system and no borrowing is limited. As a

result, not many people did not go to the library and use its resources.

Furthermore, there are over 50,000 public libraries opened by Ministry of Information.

Most of the libraries are located in every township, districts and villages. However, there are

very small numbers of libraries which is active. Most of the libraries do not have enough basic

library amenities such as books, lights and even more librarians. In addition, the responsibility of

librarians in Ministry of Information is not only the role of librarians. They also have to take

responsibility in office managements. Also, they need to write reports about office and library

every single day to the main office in Nay Pyi Taw. Until recent years, ministry of information

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uses the close shelf system. It does not allow local people to borrow books from their libraries.

And also most of the libraries rooms are attached with offices from Ministry of Information. So

the libraries did not have their own separate spaces. As a result, libraries from Ministry of

Information are not popular among local people.

Apart from government public libraries, there are a number of private libraries operated

by Embassies, for instance British Council library and the American Center library. Both of the

libraries offer a good space and good resources for the library users. It also offers public classes

for young adults and children as well. The programs and the activities in embassy are very

famous among children and youth in Myanmar. However, those libraries do not offer services

to general public. One must registers as a member to use the library services. The expense of

the library member fees is expensive in term of Myanmar’s economic condition. The British

council charge 25000 kyat ( 35 USD) per year. And American center’s member has to be at least

high school graduate to use its service. Those limitation and requirements impede general

public to come and explore the library services. In addition, almost all of the books in those

libraries are in English. Thus, one must have some educational background in English to use

library services.

Small Libraries in Myanmar

According to the rules and regulations from Information and Public Relations

Department, there are certain requirements small library has to follow. Basically, the library

must have the land, the building, the organization structure, the furniture and the patrons. After

having all those requirements, one has to submit their forms to Ministry of Information,

township level. Then, the township level will verify all those submitted documents and if the

data are confirmed it will go directly to the main office in Nay Pyi Taw. The main office in Nay

Pyi Taw will issue the confirmation and acknowledgment after finishing the scanning process.

One can run its own library and library related works after getting necessary documents.

Most of the small libraries in Myanmar are nonprofit and sometimes they are self-

funded. They fulfill the need of the education and knowledge of the country. As small libraries

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are founded by various organizations, the mission, vision and location will not be the same. It

could be in remote areas and also some economically disadvantage areas. According to the

limited funding Most of the people who work in small libraries are volunteers. Normally they

have only one full time staff and two or three library volunteers. Most of the librarians in small

libraries are not well trained. They worked in the library due to their passion to work in a

library. Also most libraries are not registered due to some limitation of libraries’ registration

before. Now government encourages those small libraries to register and also helping them by

supporting funding and books as well. Some libraries run full time from Monday to Saturday

and some runs partial time.

Challenges for small library

In previous days, the only mean of getting information is reading newspapers and

television news. Journals are very limited and most of the papers have to submit the

registration office to get approval. As a result, the ways of getting information is very limited.

Until few years ago, internet speed in Myanmar is very slow. It is almost impossible for a person

to explore a lot of website due to the slow connection. Furthermore, according to the country

restrictions, foreign media are not allowed to surf as well. People has to rely only to radio

transmission from BBC, VOA, RFA and DVB. However, in recent years, the dramatic changes

allow the whole country to use faster communication. The internet speed becomes twice and

third time faster than the other past few years and also the Information and Public Relations

Department abolish the system of registering books before printed. As a result, the people of

Myanmar have chance to get in touch with the world. The way they get information becomes

so fast and most of the people rely mainly on internet. The most famous mean of getting

information is using Facebook from mobiles. In urban area, habit of getting newspapers and

library become less popular.

Libraries

In Myanmar, libraries are not providing good services for local people. Local libraries

and schools libraries are ill equipped and lack of facilities. Those with information materials

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have them stored in cartons and cupboards and are not accessible to the intended users. This

is mainly due to lack of awareness and skills in information resource management by local

people. Subsequently, information provision to students, teachers and others is hampered. As

teachers and librarians do not have proper training to maintain the library, they have a great

concern on book lose and damaged. Thus, they simply do not allow students to use the

library. By denying access to reading materials, the children from grass-rooted area has lost their

right to learn beyond the boundaries of the classroom studies.

People

Local people especially youths also have great disadvantages from not using the public

library as well. Most of the Myanmar youths have less opportunity to access the public library

because Myanmar libraries rarely allow their users to use the services. Also, book rental shops

are expensive and can provide only comics, novels and weekly journals. Good books are very

rare for them to read and can only host in the library. Accordingly, people started to waste

their time at the teashop and other fruitless means of wasting time such as tea shop, beer shop

and others.

Expenses of books

Burmese people love to read books. Myanmar has a lot of private libraries and public

libraries since the monarchy era. However, the increasing expense of books in those days halts

the thriving libraries. The normal price of one Burmese book cost around $5 per book and one

English book cost around $6 per book. Due to lack of funding, most of the libraries start to

reduce the number of books and not allow everyone to borrow books. The lost and damage

become the greatest concern for librarians. So, they simply limit their users from borrowing

books.

All of those problems greatly impact on the society. People started to stop going to

libraries as they have a lot of limitation to borrow a book. And the expenses of buying books

also encourage them to stop reading. Without reading any books, it also hampers the

development of society and wastes the human resources. The on-going lack of knowledge will

leads people to have low morality and corruption.

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Brief History of Tharapar Library

Tharapar Library was founded in 2009. The library started with only 500 books with two

shelves, both in Myanmar and English languages. The initial founders are four volunteers’ youth

who planned to join to the universities in foreign countries and Ko Ye Htet Oo, the former

library volunteer and teacher for SAT and TOEFL. The vision of the library is

(1) To provide books and educational resources to Myanmar people.

(2) To promote reading habits among Myanmar people.

(3) To enhance the community with hosting workshop, literacy talk and seminars.

(4) To allow Myanmar youths to participate in community works.

Location and Services

Tharapar library was located in No. 196 A, 4th floor, 28th street, Yangon. The original

library room was big enough for very first 6 months. However, in later days, Tharapar received

book donations from private donor, Myanmar Book Preservations and Foundation and American

center. The collection of the library boosted into 700 English books and 100 Burmese books.

The library members had also increased to 50 members within 6 months.

In 2010, Tharapar library moved to No.188 A/B, 1st floor, 28th street, Yangon. The main reason

for relocating the library was to host more members, more services and more books. We are

now running the library with three big rooms with full air-conditioned. In 2010, we had over

4000 books in English, 1900 books in Myanmar and 200 members already. Tharapar library is

the first library which uses barcode system for library users. Library users can freely search the

library collection through the library system. We also offered free internet services to library

users and we can increase our opening hours as well.

Services:

Open daily from 10 AM to 7 PM

Free Wifi and Internet Access

Listen Corner

Children Corner

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DVDs

TOFEL and SAT trial test every week

Book Club

Community outreach

Current Tharapar Library

In current, Tharapar has 15,000 books in English and 5,000 books in Myanmar. We have

1,011 members. There are also 15 volunteers and 7 staffs who are operating the library. Library

opens daily from 10 AM until 7 PM. Library closes only on national holiday.

Fees

Tharapar Library has charges only 2,000 kyat per year. It is around only 3 USD per year.

As it is affordable price, Tharapar library allows everyone to become a member and use library

services.

Users

Tharapar Library has 1,011 members in February 2013. The age range of the library

members are from 9 years old until 55 years old. The usual member increasing rate is between

30 and 40 people per month.

Achievements

In 2009, the library opened in 28th street, 4th floor. In Myanmar, upper floor is cheaper

than ground floor. Due to limited funds library started with 4th floor.

In 2009 December, Tharapar hosted “How to think critically” by Professor Win Win Kyi.

In 2010, Library moved to the first floor.

In 2010 January, Tharapar celebrated its first anniversary.

In 2010 February, Tharapar donated 500 Burmese books to “Nae Lone Ni” non-profit

library.

In 2010 February, Tharpar donated a python to Yangon zoo.

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In 2010 June, Tharapar hosted “Road to study abroad “seminar” by students who got

admission from American Colleges.

In 2010, August, Tharapar bought barcode software and introduced its users with the

new system.

In 2011, January, Tharapar celebrated its second anniversary.

In 2011, February, Tharapar give library software training to students from government

high schools, State High School No (1) Pabaedan and State High School No (2)

Pabaedan.

In 2011, July, first American admission officers visit and seminar about American school.

In 2012, January, Library expands two rooms to expand services.

In 2012, January, Tharapar Library introduced Mobile Library services to remote area.

In 2012 May, the first mobile library trip to Than Hling and Kyauk Tan, one and half hour

away from Yangon.

In 2012 June, first literacy talk in nun school by Maung Thar Choe, the famous author in

Myanmar.

In 2012, August, the second literacy talk by Aung Thinn, the famous author in Myanmar.

In 2012, October, the first library workshop, How to organize a small library, with 50

librarians in Tharapar Library by Daw Myat Sann Nyein, Baldwin Library, American Center.

In 2012, December, the third literacy talk by Aung Thaung, the famous mathematics

researchers.

In 2012, December, library tour with Asia Book Foundation Director in Yangon Area.

All of those activities were organized by library volunteers. Those activities promote the

reading habits and empower people to read more. It also narrows down the reading inequity

among people from urban area and remote area.

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Reading Promotions by Tharapar Library

Media and spread of news

The library takes a lot of steps to promote its reading programs and books. Media in

Myanmar rarely have interest in promotion the library programs. It is also very expensive to put

the advertisement in journals, television and other media. It will cost you at least 60USD per

advertisement. So we have to go other different ways to promote the library and its programs.

The most efficient mean is to spread the news with word of mouth. It is very efficient among

people. Thus, the library provided the best services to the users. Thus, they will tell the good

news about library to their friends. In this mean, we started get good reputation among youths.

Volunteers

Volunteers are one main source who can promote the library programs. We announce

the vacancy of library volunteers in the library. Successfully, the library received over 40

volunteer applications and we chose 12 volunteers depends on their interest, the available

time and the personality. The library programs became popular as library volunteers were very

active in taking part of those programs. Also, the library has chance to listen to the volunteers

and introduce different perspective which come from volunteers. Within few months, library

has a lot of users and started to famous due to its library programs. The library also takes parts

in a lot of public activities to promote its reading promotion programs. For instance, the library

opened a booth in a charity, participated in community services and so on. Also, the library

always listen the voice and comments from the users. In this reason, we can update our news

and also fulfill their requests if we can. In this way, we try to promote our library and our

reading programs among youths. As a result, over 100 people registered our library as library

users. Due to the needs of the space, Tharapar library has to expand into another room in

2010.

Location

The location of the library is very important in Myanmar. As our public transportation is

not efficient yet, not many people can come to the library if location is not convenient for

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them. When Tharapar library planned to open, the main issue is where should we open?

Furthermore, we need to think about what kinds of users we need to target. And how can we

attract our users to come and use our library. As our very first target audience is youth, we

chose the place where most youths are there. The location of Tharapar Library is in 28th street

where most youth come from everywhere to attend English classes. In addition, the place is

central of the town as well. So we decided to open a library in that location although the price

is slightly expensive than other places. One room causes 2 lakh (USD 250) per month. Tharapar

has 3 rooms to host all those resources and services.

Our partners

Due to the reputation of the library, Tharapar Library received book donation from

American Center, Asia Foundation and Myanmar Book Preserve and Foundation. Furthermore,

the Myanmar Library Foundation, local NGO, also donate d books in Myanmar as well. The

collections of the library reach to 4000 at the end of May 2010. To promote library programs,

Tharapar Library launched more outreach programs to allow more people to participate in

library programs.

In 2012 January, the library introduced mobile library programs for children in remote

areas and economically disadvantage areas. The library has the agreement with Information and

Public Relation Department which allows Tharapar Library to borrow books from district

libraries and township libraries. It is a very unique program and agreement from the

government. Normally, the government does not affiliate with local small library. According to

the government permission, Tharapar Library can borrow 200 books from near district or

township library. Due to that agreement, we can start our new outreach program, mobile library

in Myanmar.

Pyin Nyar Shwe Oh Mobile Library

In 2012, Tharapar Library introduced mobile library named Pyin Nyar Shwe Oh Mobile

Library. The objective of the mobile library is

To assist underprivileged people acquire rightful access;

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To encourage reading, especially among monastic school children;

To promote reading and its importance to the development of nation by

introducing and exposing young children to a wide selection of reading materials;

To foster reading as a lifelong habit among Burmese people;

To help build up-to-date mobile libraries in areas especially in underserved areas in

the country.

To educate library science, catalogue and maintain the books, to librarians, teachers

and youth.

To become a mobile library, the very first step we need to think about is how to

mobile the books. We will need a vehicle and at least thousands of books to go around the

towns and remote areas. The problem with mobile library is its expense. In Myanmar, one

second hand car will at least cost you around 20000000 kyat (20000 USD). So it is not an

affordable amount for small library. And also, other charges such as gas, drivers and other

hidden cost will be around 600 USD per month.

Another challenge is country’s citizen registration system. In remote areas of Myanmar,

some people do not usually have national ID, commonly known as NRC. Until now, the system

of that NRC is still very weak. So it is a very difficult situation to know who is going to borrow a

book and if that person even return a book to us. The purpose of mobile library is to go village

from village and area from area. Then, it is not a very good idea to start a program as the

country does not have tracking system.

As funding is very limited and the main issue in Myanmar, we need to think the best

way not only to promote the reading programs but also to find a way not to lose books. So

Tharapar Library started to find a host who can host our services and our resources. Myanmar is

unique about religion and most of the people from Myanmar believe in Buddhism. Every

village, every township and every districts have pagodas, monastery and nun schools. In

addition, every area has church and mosque as well. Local people have strong relationship

with their respective religion’s leader as well. It is not hard for the religion’s leader to know

someone from their local people. And as people do not usually steal property from religion

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related places, it is already a protection from losing so many books. Then, we started to make

agreement with local religions’ leaders and we had permission from two religions’ leaders.

How do we provide books for mobile library?

Myanmar is one of the least developed countries in South East Asia. The average

income of Myanmar is around 50 USD in Yangon. In other parts of Yangon, the income is lower

than that amount. So it is hard for the normal person to buy every new edition books. As a

result, one has to use book rental shops or used books. The demand of books in remote area

is higher than urban areas as people in remote areas. In urban, people have other divisive

attraction such as television, internet and so on. So the reading rate of Myanmar in remote area

is higher and demanding. The rental rate of a book in a day is 200 kyat per day. Normally, the

local people do not borrow books that need to read a lot of days. The book rental shop

usually does not have good books such as non-fictions or long fictions as people normally do

not rent those books. Thus most of the people who live in remote area read only books which

mention about movies, celebrities, Korean movies and other pop cultures. Those people do

not have chance to explore other resources as well as people do not usually go to the library.

In past few years back, all of the Information and Public Relations Departments’ libraries are

not allowed to borrow books. The libraries used closed shelf system and one has to read only

in the library. The reason of not allowing book rental is a librarian from Information and Public

Relations have to write several reports when they have new members or lost the books. If a

librarian lost too many books, maybe he or she will be in trouble. As a result, the librarians’

rarely allow general public to borrow books from them.

The idea of mobile library is to bring the books to the local people as the books’ prices

are expensive; it is not possible for a library to buy a lot of books to circulate the mobile library

book. Due to the permission from Information and Public Relations Department, the books are

not a source of the problem. Then the library needs to empower the local people to read

books. At first, we started to survey from the location. We interviewed to them. We tried to

hear what kind of books they want to read, who their favorite author is and so on. Then, we

tried to get the books according to their preferences. We got a lot of library users within a

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month. The reason of coming to the library is we have books they want to read. Still, we did

not stop listening to our users. We have comment box which the users can suggest, complain

and recommend. A librarian must read all those, both good and bad, comments and must

reply every single one. In this way, we proved our users that we listened to them. We might

not fulfill their wish at once still we promised we would do that one day. For users, they felt

important as we listened to them and replied. It is a way of making your users more

comfortable to use your library services. In addition, we opened the door to participate in our

better services.

Mobile Library programs

As the vision of Tharapar Library is to meet the educational, informational, recreational

and cultural needs of people of all ages through a wide range of materials and services in

varying formats, we decide to launch ground-breaking mobile libraries. The mobile libraries will

provide books, trainings, workshops, author talks, games, story- telling and book clubs.

The mobile library is not going to provides books alone. It will educate librarians by

giving training, for instance, how to maintain the library. The systematic training will encourage

the librarian to allow its users to take books from the library and return those books in time.

It will also empower the students and local people to read by allowing them to

participate in the book clubs, story-telling competition.

We can also inspire people to have general knowledge by inviting great writers and

professors from universities to give them a small presentation for local people. Those

presentations are going to enlighten the local people and encourage them to have better life.

As the school is located in district area, it will be the great benefits for the local people to have

such kind of talks and presentations.

To promote the reading promotion, we have reading day once a week. The purpose of

reading day is to read a particular book by our volunteers. It is a very important activity as we

not only read but also act with some verbal and gesture to the people. It attracts most of the

people around the area.

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Furthermore, literacy talking is another mean of promote the reading. Once a month,

we invited the famous writer to come and talk about their books. It is an effective way because

many people want to talk and discuss with their favorite authors. Since the very first event,

around 100 people attended the event. The discussion was very active and the audience

discussed about the particular book they have read for the event.

Book Corners in public areas.

Information and Public Relations Department decided to introduce book corners in

public areas. The idea of introducing book corner is to promote the reading promoting among

people. It also encourages people to read books and journals. One book shelf usually has 100

books. There are several kinds of books and journals at the book shelf. The books shelves are

target to the people who are normally waiting for the transportation. In Myanmar, the mass

transportation is very weak. Most of the people who use mass transportation are economically

disadvantage people. Since it is not that efficient, most of the people have to wait for the train

and the ferry. As a train station hosts hundreds of people every two hours, Information and

Public Relations Department introduces four books shelves. Also, the ferry has over 100

passengers in every 20 minutes and the department introduced one book shelf to that place.

One of the book shelves is permitted to buy 70000 kyat (85USD) per month. So normally, the

shelf will have three new journals every day and three new books every month. Most of the

books are donated by Myanmar Library Foundation. Tharapar library’s volunteers participated

in that program as we believe it is the movement to promote reading habits and eradicate in

equity of reading among people.

Target Group.

To promote reading promotions, we target three groups to improve our services.

Nuns, teachers and librarian

Students

Local youths and people

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Nuns, teachers and librarians.

There are nuns, teachers and librarians. They do not have any training in organizing

library. Thus, they decide not to borrow books as they wish to prevent from losing books. The

mobile library is going to host the seminar and training for the teachers and librarians. We will

invite librarians from Embassies and national libraries and provide them library training.

Students

Our library programs will persuade students to join our programs and enjoy reading

books again. Additionally, representatives from Pyin Nyar Shwe Oh library will work with

teachers and parents to improve their ability to read effectively to children. Children will be

encouraged to perform simple comprehension exercises through school and library-based

competitions.

Local youth and people

The availability of books from the library with low cost will encourage them to come

and read in the library. The seminars and author talks will also inspire youth and local people

to come and have enlighten speech from the author they fond of. As the village is located in

district area, this will be great opportunity for them to attend those presentation and talks.

Youths and local people will get their knowledge in two ways: reading and attending talks.

Future Goal

Myanmar is opening a new chapters and the country is developing in every means.

Tharapar library has to adopt a lot of means to develop library programs. In four years, library

introduces a lot of means to promote reading programs. We will try to expand our mobile

library services to other areas and our reading programs as well. If our budget is enough, we will

conduct more libraries all over the country.

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Conclusion

The country needs a lot of capacity and human resources. The need of education is

also in large and Tharapar library helps to develop the library role and we are honoured for our

roles. We do hope that more partners and librarians can flow into our country and we would

like to partner with other library organizations, NGO to promote our libraries’ system and

reading promotion.