Major Library Holdings of Early Malay Books

Ian Proudfoot*

Abstrak: Satu tinjauan telah dibuat untuk mencari dan mencatatkan buku-buku Melayuyang diterbitkan di rantau Ma/aysia-Singapura da/am tempoh seratus tahun pertamasejarah percetakan di rantau inl, dari 1817 hingga 1920. Hampir 2,200 buah bahan telahdikenalpasti di 13 buah perpustakaan negara, umum dan akademik di England, Belanda,Indonesia, Singapura dan Malaysia. Buku-buku inl terdiri daripada penerbitan-penerbitanmubaligh Kristian, beberapa buah tetjemehen daripada roman-roman Cina kepada bahasaMelayu Baba, buku-buku sekolah, panduan kepada syariah Islam dan sebilangan besarpenerbitan popular da/am bentuk syair dan hikayat. Sebahagian besar daripada buku-bukulama ini mung kin hanya tinggal satu-satu naskhah sahaja.

Abstract: An attempt has been made to locate and record Malay books published in the Ma-laysia-Singapore region during the first hundred years of printing, from 1817 to 1920. About2,200 items were located in 13 national, public and academic libraries in England, theNetherlands, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, The books include Christian missionpublications, a few Baba translations of Chinese romances, school books, guides to Islamicdoctrine, and a great number of popular syair and hikayat. Many of these old books may nowsurvive in only one copy.

This is a brief report of a survey undertaken in1982/83 and 1985. The aim of the survey was toidentify early Malay printed material held in majorlibrary collections. The survey covered more orless the first hundred years of Malay printing inthe Malaysia-Singapore region.

The first locally printed book in Malay wasprobably published by the Mission Press at Ma-lacca in 1817. This is thp. starting point of thesurvey. The decision to close the survey at around1920 was not entirely for the sake of conven-ience. In his recent book Malay Society in the LateNineteenth Century: the Beginnings of Change,Gullick observes:

The end of an epoch and the beginningof another cannot be dated precisely. Butone can recognize that by, say, 1920 anage had ended and another had begun. Bythat date, the Malay community had setaside its initial doubts about the lay educa-tion of its sons (and its daughters) - somuch so that the Malays were demandingthat the network of vernacular schools, apowerful instrument for change, should beextended throughout the Malay states. Itwas also the time when rubber cultivation,originally confined to plantations, had be-

come widespread among Malay smallhold-ers, thereby offering an opportunity of eco-nomic advance. The motor car, and therural bus service running on all-weather roads,had begunto narrow the gap between coun-tryside and town ....

These and other factors of change didnot have a clear-cut beginning in 1920. Onthe contrary, one can find their origins in thetwenty years which began at the turn of thecentury. So 1900 -1920 may be regarded asa watershed. This is perhaps the periodwhen the modern Malaya (and later Malay-sia) began to take shape.'

Malay publishing had also crossed a water-shed by 1920. By then key characteristics of itsmodern structure had begun to emerqe.f By1920, improved communications had allowed thedevelopment of new media more capable ofexploiting the opportunities thus created, Thusnewspapers and magazines had begun to dis-place books as the pre-eminent form of masscommunication. The predominance of periodi-cals in this new period also ushered in moremodern literary forms, This is remarked by Za'bain his survey of "Modern Developments",3 Along-side developments in journalism, creative roman-

"Asian History Centre, Australian National University

Kekal Abadl 8(1) Mac 1989 7

tic prose fiction written in Malay, and translationsof fiction from mainly Egyptian and English sources,appeared. Such material has been listed byRugayah Abdul Rashid and by Ding Choo Ming.4

Before embarking on the present survey, Ihad the false impression that nineteenth centurymanuscripts and printed missionary tracts gaveway to a modern twentieth century exemplified bythe Malay Literary Series, newspapers, and schoolbooks. This proved to be far from true. From 1817to the 1860's, printing was indeed the preserve ofthe Christian missions. But during the half-cen-tury from 1860 to 1910 a flourishing Malay booktrade sprang up in the Straits Settlements, par-ticularly in Singapore. A large number of cheapMalay lithographs were put out by commercialpublishers. This should not, perhaps, have sur-prised me. Wilkinson used many such works incompiling his Dictionary, and Winstedt has a fewin the bibliography of his History of ClassicalMalay Literature. Overbeck was interested insome of these texts, and Dutch manuscript cata-loguers also made passing mention of theseearly lithographs. Yet this underlines the prob-lem. References to this considerable body ofmaterial have so often been in passing that it hasnot received its due. By contrast, William Roff'sworks have given early Malay journalism its right-ful place in the sun.

Early book publishing, and particularly earlylithographic printing, make up a considerablearea of earlier Malay cultural activity which de-serves to be better known. The purpose of thissurvey is to make this neglected material moreaccessible. I intend that the present short prelimi-nary report should be followed soon by a moredetailed inventory which will enable particulartitles and editions to be located.

Scope of the survey

The survey covers both Malay-language booksand books published for Malay readers. Thus afew books on religious topics published in Arabicand Javanese are included, as are a few bilingualEnglish and Malay works, provided they werepublished or printed in the Malaysia-Singaporearea. However these special cases are insignifi-cant beside the great bulk of Malay-languagepublication. Of the Malay-language books, mostwere published by local Malay or Javanese pub-

8

lishers, mainly based in Singapore. Other signifi-cant but less prolific sources of publication werethe Christian missions and the publishers ofgovernment-sponsored school books.s SabaMalay publishing, though an interesting phenome-non during the latter part of the survey period, isnot numerically significant.

The geographical scope of the Malaysia-Sin-gapore area is broadly defined. It is taken toinclude the Straits Settlements, the Malay Statesof the peninsula, Sarawak, Riau, Palembang, andBencoolen. Inclusion of the last three areas de-serves comment. Close ties existed between theliterary and publishing world of Riau and theneighbouring urban centre of Singapore. As aninstance of these links, the AI-Ahmadiah press ofPenyengat-Inderasakti was re-established inSingapore after 1911.6 Similarly, a few worksissued at Palembang were printed in Singapore.The relationship with Bencoolen is different: earlyEnglish missionary printing before 1826 in Suma-tra and particularly at Fort Marlborough, Ben-coolen, may be seen as a precursor of missionprinting in the Straits Settlements.

Works printed elsewhere may have been in-tended for publication in Singapore or Malaysia,or at least for simultaneous release in the region.Some Protestant rnssonary tracts printed at Para-pattan, Batavia, fall into this class." Similarly Ma-lay Islamic works published in Cairo, Mecca, andIstanbul may have been destined directly andindirectly for the regional market. 8 Even morespecifically directed to Singapore outlets werethe Malay-language works published in Bom-bay.9 However, no such items have been in-cluded in the survey.

Within these definitions, about 2,200 itemswere located. Allowing for duplicate copies, thesecomprise well over 1,700 separate editions of 830titles. A very large proportion of this material wasproduced in Singapore, and the overwhelmingmajority in the urban centres of the Straits Settle-ments.

Straits SettlementsSingaporeMalaccaPenang

Peninsular Malay States

Editions

91%81%3%7%

4%

Riau-LinggaSarawakBencoolen

2%2%

0.5%

The prominence of Singapore and Penangstems from a number of linked factors, amongwhich are the urban mercantile society of theStraits Settlements, with its higher levels of edu-cation and I~eracy, the communications and tradenetworks radiating from these centres, and theSettlements' concurrent role as administrativecentres."?

The survey is based upon the holdings ofthirteen significant public collections, and a few ofminor importance. Each of the libraries holdingthese collections was visited in an attempt tolocate relevant material. As far as the material wasavailable, it was physically examined.

The major collections surveyed are located inBritain, the Netherlands, Indonesia, Singapore,and Malaysia.

SOAS

BL British Library, London

ULC

BFBS

KITLV

RUL

PNI

NLSNMS

UM

DB

PNM

PUPP

School of Oriental and AfricanStudies, London

University Library, Cambridge

British and Foreign Bible Society,London

Koninklijk lnstituut voor Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde, Leiden

Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit teLeiden (Leiden University Library)

Perpustakaan Nasionallndonesia(Indonesian National Library), Jakarta

National Library of SingaporeNational Museum of Singapore

Perpustakaan Universiti Malaya(University of Malaya Library)

Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, KualaLumpur

Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia(National Library of Malaysia), KualaLumpur

Perpustakaan Umum Pulau Pinang(Penang Public Library)

The following graph shows the size of the

relevant collections of early Malay imprints in thesurveyed libraries, and gives an impression of theproportion of each collection which comprisesunique items.

I

[] all ~.ms

::; ~I_:: __1L..J1_::m:: __.I__:f _1__:::__1ilL-.-.IiiI__.ii-......_1;;;__... .......r;:l...._. ~:L.....un_lqu_. .;

ElL SOAS "'-.S RA. PNI Ll.C lU KITLV 8FBS ce PNM PUPP I'US

In terms of the survey, unique items are thosenot held in the other collections surveyed. Itemswhich are unique in this sense are very likely to bein fact the sole surviving examples of their edi-tions.

BL: British Library

487 items, of which 211 are unique.

The British Library (formerly known as theBritish Museum) has easily the largest collectionof early Malaysian imprints. Its collection is out-standingly strong in two areas.

In 1888, the British Library acquired much ofthe rich collection of early missionary imprints as-sembled by the doyen of French Oriental studies,the Abbe Favre.l ' At a stroke it gained the finestcollection of early to mid-nineteenth century Malay-an imprints.

Its second major strength lies in its compre-hensive coverage of material published in Sin-gapore and Penang from 1887 onwards. Thissprings from its role as a statutory deposit libraryunder the Imperial Copyright Act of 1886. In theStraits Settlements this imperial act was appliedthrough the Books Registration Ordinance 1886(later the Printers and Publishers Ordinance).Similar provisions were enacted for the Feder-ated Malay States in 1915. Under these enact-ments, quarterly memoranda listing registeredbooks were to be published in the GovernmentGazette, and one copy of each book registeredwas to be sent to the British Museurn.F This rulewas observed, and today in the British LibraryOriental Collections (formerly Department of Ori-

9

ental Manuscripts and Printed Books) one maysee registers compiled from the gazetted memo-randa marked off as the books had been re-cei -ed, Unfortunately, not all material receivedwas retained. Some interesting items which mayhave been regarded as ephemera are apparentlynot in the collection. However, some materialfrom the early twentieth century is still uncata-logued, giving hope that not all is truly lost. At thesame time of my visit, about 60%of the registeredMalay material could be located through the cardcatalogues.

Norwas all printed material caught by the reg-istration system. Government publications wereexempt from registration, and therefore, ironi-cally, are not well represented in this most officialof collections. And a fair number of books liable toregistration, slipped past. Of the Singapore andPenang editions covered by this survey and liableto registration, somewhat less than half were infact registered.

The collection is kept in closed shelves andar anged by the shelf-number system. Bookspublished in Malay and other non-European lan-guages are kept in the Oriental Collections, whilebilingual publications which involve a Europeanlanguage will generally be found in the mainreference collection.

The main reference collection is accessiblethrough the printed General Catalogue of theBritish Library.13This does not include the booksheld in the Oriental Collections, except for a fewBible translations. A very few bilingual Malay andArabic works will be found in the printed Cata-logue of the Arabic Books, 14but by and large thematerial relevant to the survey is currently acces-sible only through card catalogues in the OrientalCollections. These catalogues are divided ac-cording to language -- although Malay-languagematerial is further divided into Malay and Indone-sian, apparently on the basis of place of publica-tion. The catalogue contains minimal thoughgenerally reliable descriptions. (Note though thatbooks with unnumbered pages often have thenumber of leaves given as the number of pages inthe catalogue description.)

The department of Oriental Collections is inthe process of committing its catalogue cards tomicroform, which will make this major collection

10

much more accessible to scholars outside Brit-ain.Some ofthe collection is also now available inmicroform. The National Library ofSingapore hasa long-standing project to obtain microform cop-ies of all the Singapore imprints in the BritishLibrary which are lacking in its own collection. Iunderstand the Perpustakaan Negara Malaysiais similarly engaged in obtaining copies of thesmaller number of Malaysian imprints.

In 1982, the India Office Library and Recordswas administratively assigned to the British Li-brary. Since this survey was made, a fair numberof early Malay and Javanese books from an IndiaOfficewarehouse have been added to the Orien-tal Collections of the British Library. To a largeextent these books duplicate items already incollection, but with some very valuable additions(including four copies of the 1849 first edition ofHikayat Abdullah). These books, and others fromthe India Office Library and Records, are listed inits catalogue of South East Asia and Minor Lan-guages, issued by the India Office inmicrofiche.P

These books have not been included in thepresent survey, which therefore underestimatesthe wealth of the total BL collection.

SOAS: School of Oriental and African Studies

379 items, of which 131 are unique.

Next in size after the British Library's collec-tion is that of the library of the School of Orientaland African Studies. Its notable strengths are agood collection of school books and a number ofunique Sarawak publications. This library alsohouses the archives of the Congregational Coun-cil for World Mission (CCWM). The archives in-clude 20 Malay books emanating from the Lon-don Missionary Society'S presses in Singapore,Malacca and Penang. Conspicuously absent in acollection of this size are Baba translations ofChinese historical romances.

Unlike the British Library collection, whichwas built upon legal deposit copies, the SOAScollection has been assembled from diversesources, and reflects the interests of the colonialscholars who staffed the School in its early days.The collection of school books is the more signifi-cant because many school books, as govern-

ment publications, were not subject to legal reg-istration and therefore do not figure in the BritishLibrary collection.

Location of items is through a card catalogue,in which books are described minimally. An olderversion of the catalogue is still in use alongside itsnewer counterpart. Discrepancies between themattest to a moderate rate of attrition in the collec-tion. About 6% of material listed in either cata-logue could not be located. At the time of my visitmost items were kept on open shelves, althoughI understand that many rare items are now beingwithdrawn into closed stacks.

NLS: National Library of Singapore

261 items, of which 68 are unique.

Formerly the Raffles Library and Museum,this library was, like the British Museum, a deposi-tory for books registered for publication in theStraits setnernents.t" At least half of the itemsrelevant to this survey stem from such deposits,by and large duplicating the British Library in thisarea. However the Singapore deposits are lesscomplete than those of the British Library: Sin-gapore has 30% of the registered books com-pared with the British Library's 60% (though theSingapore material does include 52 items notlocated in the British Library).

The collection has suffered heavy attritionboth because the Raffles Library operated as apublic subscription lending library and becauselittle concern was taken with its non-Englishbooks.'? The severity of the wastage is sug-gested by the small proportion of the registeredbooks now found in the collection. Similarly, of theitems relevant to this survey included in twobequests of which we have early published cata-logues, only 18% and 28% rernain.l"

Malaysiana research material (prefixed MR)is kept in the Southeast Asia room, to whichpublic access is restricted. Two-thirds of the itemsrelevant to the survey, including books depositedafter registration, are kept in rare book cabinets atthe rear of this room. The deposit material was atsome time randomly collated into bound volumesentitled "Books Published in the Straits Settle-ments". Direct consultation of this rare material is

discouraged. Most has been microfilmed. Nocomplete list of the material kept in the rare bookcabinets was available.

The collection is described in a section of thecard catalogue devoted to Malay-language booksand, in the case of bilingual books, in the maincard catalogue. Further, since most of the itemshave been microfilmed, they are listed in theMasterlist of Southeast Asian Microforms.19However, the older catalogue descriptions, whichderive from the Raffles Library, are rudimentaryand not always accurate. There has been consis-tent error in converting dates of publication fromthe Muslim calendar.

In a few instances, books inherited from theRaffles Library have not been re-catalogued, andtherefore remain inaccessible - although, curi-ously, a couple have been microfilmed.

In its national role, the Library has a long-termproject under way to compile a complete retro-spective bibliography of Singapore imprints, andto obtain microform copies of those publicationsit does not already hold. To this end a consider-able number of rntcrotorrn copies have beenobtained from the British Library, and a few fromthe University of Malaya. In time, a useful researchcollection will be assembled. Indeed, I trust thatthe information assembled in preparing this sur-vey will assist in the success of this project.

RUL: Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden

243 items, of which 84 are unique.

In the area and time relevant to the survey,this collection is built upon books gathered by anumber of scholars, including works of varieddate from Ophuysen and van der Tuuk, a mainly1890's collection from Hurgronje, and a few itemsfrom Rinkes, van Ronkel, and Uhlenbeck. itemsfrom the Nederlandsch Bijbelgenootschap (Neth-erlands Bible Society) are also preser.t, mainlyfrom the 1850's and 1860's. Because the bookswere thus obtained by private agents and throughcommercial channels.s? they include many Sin-gapore publications which slipped through theregistration prccedure. Books published off-shorein Riau are also well represented. As with theSchool of Oriental and African Studies, however,

11

the scholarly interests of the collectors did notextend to Baba translations of Chinese historicalromances.

The scholarly ambience of this collection isreflected in the expert and informed descriptionsof books in the catalogue, which are furthermoresometimes accompanied by references to thescholarly literature or comparable manuscript texts.

The catalogue is kept in small binders con-taining catalogue slips. These are arranged inseparate sequences for books in each language.The main catalogue also covers some satellitecolleCtions, like that of the Instituut Kern. Thebooks relevant to the survey represent a smallpart of the Malay-language listings, and minus-cule parts of the listings for Javanese, other Indo-nesian languages, and Arabic. The survey un-doubtedly comes close to a full coverage of therelevant Malay-language material, but may beless complete for other Indonesian languages.Locating the few Arabic works published in Sin-gapore within the vast Leiden Arabic-languageholdings would have been almost impossibly time-consuming, and was not attempted.

Published access tools are lacking, though avery few items in the book collection are referredto in the manuscript catalogues of Juynboll andvan Ronkel.21

The books are kept in closed stacks and ar-ranged by shelf-number. At the time of my visit,the Library was preparing for its move into newpremises, now complete.

The collection has remained virtually intact.Considering the liberal access allowed to thebook collection, this is a tribute to the probity ofthree generations of Dutch scholars.

PNI: Perpustakaan Naslonal Indonesia

232 items, of which 73 are unique.

Formerly the library of the BataviaaschGenootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen,the premier scholarly society of the NetherlandsIndies, this collection is now an important part ofthe Perpustakaan Nasional Indonesia (NationalLibrary of Indonesia). There was earlier and moresustained scholarly interest in the Malay language

12

in the Netherlands Indies than in the British colo-nial sphere, and this strength is reflected in theBataviaasch Genootschap collection. It has agood selection of mission press publications datingfrom the 1840's onward. Like the Leiden collec-tions, it is important for books which were notregistered in Singapore and for Riau publica-tions.

The books are kept in closed stacks arrangedby shelf-number. They are accessible throughsheaf-binders kept by the reference desk, whichcontain entries in one sequence covering all lan-guages of publication. Description of the books isgenerally accurate and well-informed, as befitsthe library of a scholarly society.

Acquisitions by the Bataviaasch Genootschaplibrary were reported quarterly - not always accu-rately - in the Soeiety's Notu/en. It was possible toidentify about 80% of these items in the currentcatalogues.

The collection has suffered considerably overtime for a combination of reasons. The tribula-tions of the war years, 22 the fact that it has been alending library, and the current need for the li-brary to assume the role of a public library have alltaken their toll. About 25% of the cataloguedcollection could not be found on the shelves,though not all those items missing are necessar-ily lost.

ULC: University Library, Cambridge

123 items, of which 54 are unique.

The high proportion of unique items found inthis collection is the contribution ofT.J. Chamber-lain. Chamberlain had collected Malay lithographspublished in Singapore during his postings as acavalry officer in Labuan and Colombo. His col-lection is particularly valuable because it coversthe late 1860's and early 1870's - before theenactment of book registration provisions uponwhich so much of the British Library and NationalUbrary of Singapore coverage depends, and beforethe Dutch scholars who contributed to the LeidenUniversity collection became actively interested.

Noteworthy, too, in this collection are litho-graphs collected by Wilkinson, mainly from the1890's, and some interesting ephemera in the

Scott collection from the same period. Generally,very little of such ephemera has survived in librarycollections.

At the time of my visit, Chamberlain's andWilkinson's lithographs had not been catalogued.The library has subsequently issued a list of theChamberlain lithographs.23

UM: Perpustakaan Universiti Malaya

118 items, of which 54 are unique.

Since the re-establishment of the Universityof Malaya Library in Kuala Lumpur in 1962, theMalay collection has been actively developed. Itwas greatly enriched in 1976 by the bequest ofthe personal library of Za'ba (Zainal Abidin binAhmad), pre-eminent Malay man of letters andfirst head of the Malay Studies department in theUniversity. Over one-third of the items relevant tothis survey are drawn from Za'ba's extensivelibrary. The collection is particularly important forsome early Johor and Kelantan imprints, andincludes Saba translations from Chinese.24 Of allthe library collections surveyed, this has the high-est proportion of unique items, though it has littlebefore the 1890's.

Now named the Koleksi Kebangsaan (Na-tional Collection), the Malay collection is housedin a wing of the main building of the University ofMalaya Library to which only restricted access isallowed. The books are shelved by Library ofCongress order, in two sequences to preservethe integrity of the Za'ba collection.

The collection is accurately described in twolibrary publications, Katalog Koleksi Melayu andKoleksi Za'ba. 25 These cataloguesbring the KoleksiKebangsaan alongside the Koninklijk Instituutcollection as one ofthe two most effectively docu-mented collections containing early Malay im-prints, and reflect the positive role the UniversityLibrary takes in publicizing its collections.

The collection includes microfiche copies of anumber of items from the library of the KoninklijkInstituut in Leiden. The University of Malaya Li-brary has in turn provided microfiche copies of itsSaba books to the National Library in Singapore.

KITLV: Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- enVolkenkunde

108 items, of which 37 are unique.

The earlier range and interests of the library ofthe Royal Institute of linguistics and Anthropol-ogy are reflected in its former name and loca-tion.26 It was previously known as the KolonialeSibliotheek (Colonial Library) and situated in theDutch capital at the Hague. It is now situated inLeiden where it serves the research interests of itsmembership and the academic community incooperation with the Leiden University Library. Aswith that library, the material in the Institute'slibrary relevant to this survey is a negligible part ofitswhole collection. Of the relevant material, thereis little older than the 1890's. From that time on,there is a well-rounded collection of commercialand government-sponsored publications, thoughnot of mission or Saba books. The representa-tivenessof the collection is indicated by the degreeand evenness of its common ground with theother three older scholarly libraries.

The books are kept inclosed stacks, arrangedby shelf-number. The collection shows attrition of4%.

The books are accurately described in sheaf-binders kept in the reading room, and in anexcellent parallel series of published cataloquesf?Although the sheaf-binders are the more fullycross-referenced, the printed catalogues are anoutstanding reference tool. They give detailedand accurate descriptions of the Institute's exten-sive library, which includes a great many bookspublished in Malay (mainly in the NetherlandsIndies, of course). The printed catalogues aresub-divided into broad subject areas,within whichthe order of listing is chronological. USing thisresource, the University of Malaya Library hasobtained microform copies of a number of impor-tant items.

DB: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka

77 items, of which 32 are unique.

The Dewan Sahasadan Pustakawas foundedin 1959, and its young collection has been gath-ered by active solicitation of books from private

13

hands. Given this provenance, it is no surprisethat some material is in quite poor condition. Atthe same time, the uncharacteristic sources fromwhich the material has been obtained give thiscollection a special interest. With very few excep-tions, all material can be dated later than 1895.

About half the books included in this surveyare kept on open shelves directly accessible tostaff of the Dewan and arranged in Dewey order;the remainder - mainly fragile lithographs - arekept in a closed manuscript collection and num-bered as part of the manuscript collection. Ac-cess to the shelved books is through the cardcatalogue. Books included in this survey are listedin a section of the catalogue devoted to rarebooks, which offers cursory descriptions of thebooks. The material in the manuscript collectionis accessible through a brief list kept at the refer-ence desk. An earlier version of this list waspublished in 1973.28

Of the catalogued and listed material, 17%was not accounted for.

BFBS: British and Foreign Bible Society

79 items, of which 19 are unique.

The Bible society'S collection was not physi-cally surveyed. Data have been taken from Dar-low and Moule's Historical Catalogue of the PrintedEditions of Holy Scripture in the Library of theBritish and Foreign Bible Society.29 For the pur-poses of the survey, this excellent work has twodrawbacks. It does not pretend to describe allholdings of the Society's library. It gives a fullaccount of the translations of the scriptures,mentioning other mission publications only inci-dentally. Secondly, as the description of works inMalay and other Southeast Asian languages waspublished in 1911, the full time span of the surveyis not covered.

PNM: Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia

40 items, of which 5 are unique.

The National Library of Malaysia was foundedin 1971. This is, therefore, a young collection andhas few unique items, though it does contain asizable number of bilingual works in English andMalay.

14

The books relevant to this survey are kept inrare book cabinets, in a collection well docu-mented in two short catalogues of rare bookspublished in 1982.30

Like the Singapore National Library, TheNational Library of Malaysia has a programme toacquire microform copies of early Malaysianimprints from the British Library, although for theperiod of this survey few items are involved ..

PUPP: Perpustakaan Umum Pulau Pinang

11 items, of which 2 are unique.

Stemming originally from the Penang PublicLibrary, which was founded in 1817, this libraryhas the oldest lineage of any in the Malaysia-Sin-gapore area. Its collection, however, has sufferedbadly from attrition due to its history as a lendinglibrary, disruptions of the war years, administra-tive changes, and a major discard of old stock inpoor condition.F' However, it probably neverincluded much Malay-language material.32

Today, the rare books relevant to this surveyare kept in closed stacks to the rear of the readingroom. Books kept there can be located throughthe main catalogue, or through a list kept by thelibrarian.

NMS: National Museum, Singapore

9 items, of which 2 are unique.

The National Museum of Singapore is an-other successor to the Raffles Library and Mu-seum, housed in the old Museum buildings. TheMuseum has a small number of Baba publica-tions which have been presented to it since itsseparation from the National Library. These booksare treated as materials for exhibit rather than aslibrary materials, with the result that they are notaccessible for consultation by readers. They arekept in a locked cupboard in the Museum admini-stration's workroom.

The works are entered and briefly (though notalways correctly) described in a register, which isalso kept in the Museum's workroom. The regis-ter includes photographic prints of selected titlepages.

Other sources

Although the survey covers the major collec-tions of early Malay printed material, it does notpretend to be complete. The omission of a num-ber of books formerly in the India Office Libraryhas already been noted.

A few significant collections have not beensurveyed. Some are known to have some rele-vant material. These include the Yayasan InderaSakti of Riau, the Arkib Negara in Kuala Lumpurand the Oxford Institute of Social Anthropology.33Of these, the Arkib Negara has the most potentialfor enriching the inventory, especially in the fieldsof non-book printed materials and governmentpublications otthe Unfederated Malay States.

In another category are libraries which maybe thought likely to include early Malay printedworks but about which little information is avail-able. To be mentioned here are Rhodes Houselibrary and the Bodleian library in Oxford, and theLibrary of Congress in Washington, where publi-cations of the American Board of Commissionersfor Foreign Missions may be deposited. Perhaps,too, regional and special purpose libraries inMalaysia should be added to this category.

A third category would include libraries whichat the time they were surveyed did not haverelevant material but which are actively collecting,and may have such material now. As an example,at the time of my visit the Perpustakaan Tun SeriLanang of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia wason the verge of acquiring a promlslnq privatecollection from Johor.

Concluding comments

The reasons for the neglect of this often uniquematerial are complex and inter-related. They in-clude the rapid changes in popular literary tasteand patterns of leisure during the twentieth cen-tury which are associated with the advent of newmedia - newspapers, film, and the qrarnophone''"- and with new forms of schooling. Contributoryreasons have been the prejudice and politicalinterests of colonial scholars and the preferenceof the Western philological tradition for working

with manuscripts. Recently younger scholars,discarding the old prejudices and metho s, havefound this nineteenth century popular literatureinteresting.35

Yet much early published material has un-doubtedly been lost. In time, more early Malaybooks will emerge in the collections of Europeand America, and more will be collected rrorn dis-persed private hands in Malaysia and Indonesia.However it is noticeable that the more recentlyformed collections in the survey contain very littlematerial dating from before the 1890's. It is there-fore likely that a fair proportion of the items iden-tified in this survey as being unique will remain so.

With the passage of time, there is the risk thateven what is now retained in library collectionswill perish. Much of what survives is now in verypoor condition. Time has told severely on theworks of indigenous printers, who used poorquality paper which has now become fragile.Tropical climatic conditions have exacerbatedthe problem for Malaysian and Indonesia collec-tions. Consequently the task of identifying, secur-ing and preserving this material is now urqent,When published, the inventory of early Malaybooks upon which this survey is based may assistin this task. A coordinated microfilming policy, likethe programmes begun by the national librariesof Malaysia and Singapore, is probably the mostcost-effective answer to immediate problems, Aframework for publishing the results of ? con-certed microfilming project already exists in theSARBICA-CONSAL project which has producedthe Masterlist of Southeast Asian Microforms. 36

Regrettably, present-day political boun:::larieshave influenced library policies, and helped todeny this valuable material its due recognition.The survey clearly establishes Singapore's domi-nating role in early Malay-language publishing.The fact that these early books were produced inSingapore does not make them any less a part ofthe Malay - and Malaysian - cultural heritage. Onthe other hand, for modern Singapore thess arethe products of a local minority community, andmay not therefore receive the attention their widersignificance warrants. On this issue, the NationalLibrary of Indonesia shows the way. It has nothesitated to include early Singapore lithographsin the Malay section of its bibliography of reqionalliteratures.V

15

Notes

1. J.M. Gullick, Malay Society in the Late Nine-teenth Century, Singapore, Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1987, p.1.

2. See I. Proudfoot, "A Formative Period inMalay Publishing", JMBRAS, vol. 59, pt. 2(1986), pp.101-132.

3. Za'ba, "Modern Developments", JMBRAS,vol. 17, pt. 3 (1939), pp.147-148, 151-162.

4. Rugayah Abdul Rashid, Bibliografi SastraKreatif Melayu 1920-1967, Kuala Lumpur,Jabatan Pengajian Melayu Universiti Ma-laya, Kertas Data 14 (Julai 1977),26 (Febru-ari 1979), 27 (Mei 1979); Ding Choo Ming,Bib/iografi Sastera Kreatff Melayu, jilid I: Brune~Malaysia & Singapura 1920-1980, Bangi,Perpustakaan Universiti Kebangsaan Ma-laysia, 1980.

5. For a breakdown of categories of book pro-duction 1887-1920, see Proudfoot, ;'A For-mative Period".

6. See further UU. Hamidy, "Kegiatan Perce-takan Riau Seabad Berselang", Optimis,no. 36 (January 1983), p.72.

7. So, in the British Library collection, they arebound with Malacca publications, and wereput through the press by missionaries ac-tive at Malacca.

8. C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka in the Latter Partci the 19th Century, Leiden, Brill, 1931, pp.286-287; V. Matheson and M.B. Hooker, "Jawiliterature in Patani", JMBRAS, vol. 61, pt. 1(1988), pp.21, 48.

9. Bombay Malay publication began with litho-graphs of Islamic treatises in the late nine-teenth century. In the twentieth centurypopular syair also appear. The most activepublisher had Singapore offices at least by1921.

10. W.R. Roff, The Origins of Malay Nationalism,New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press,1967, ch.2.

11. BibliotMque de M. I'Abbe Favre ... en ventechez Maisonneuve et Ch. Leclerc, 1888,Paris, G-P. Maisonneuve et Larosse, 1974[reprint].

12. International Copyright Act 1886 (25 June1886) at Straits Settlements Govemment Ga-

16

zette, 22 October 1886, pp.1725-1731, andBooks Registration Ordinance No. 15 of1886 at 26 November 1886, pp.2027 -2029,with notifications 31 December 1886pp.2223-2224; Book Registration Order-in~Council No. 17 of 1895, Perak, 4 November1895, The Laws ofPerak 1877 .. 1896,p.588;Book Registration Enactment NO.6 of 1898,Selangor, The Laws of Selangor 1877 ..1899, p.655; Printing and Books Enactment191 [5] (Draft) Federated Malay States Gov-ernment Gazette, 18 June 1915, pp.914-918. The Perak and Selangor legislation didnot provide for published memoranda ofregistration.

13. The British Library General Catalogue of PrintedBooks to 1975, 360 volumes,. London, Bingley& Saur, 1979-1987.

14. Catalogue of Arabic Books in the British Mu-seum, compiled by A.G. Ellis, 2 volumes,London, Trustees of the British Museum,1894-1901 ; with supplements.

15. I thank the Curator of Indonesian and Malay,Oriental Collections, British Library (Anna-bel Gallop) for information concerning theseIndia Office books. .

16. Though it is not certain that deposit copieswere invariably placed with the Raffles Li-brary, as this was at the Colonial Secre-tary's discretion.

17. Edward Lim Huck Tee, Libraries in West Ma-laysia and Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Uni-versity of Malaya Library, 1970, ch.IV, espe-cially pp.76-77.

18. See Catalogue of the Logan Philological Li-brary, forming a Trust Portion of the RafflesLibrary, Singapore, strats Times Press, 1880;and R. Hanitsch (ed), Catalogue of the RostCollection in the Raffles Library, Singapore,Singapore, American Mission Press, 1897.

19. Winarti Partaningrat (ed), Masterlist of South-east Asian Microforms, Singapore, Singa-pore University Press, 1978; and subse-quent microfiche editions.

20. Note Proudfoot, "A nineteenth-century Malaybookseller's catalogue", Kekal Abadi, jil. 6,bil. 4 (1987), p.2 referring to an invoice forsixteen Singapore lithographs.

21. H.H. Juynboll, Catalogus van de Maleischeen Sundaneesche Handschriften der

Leidsche Universiteits-Bibliotheek, Leiden,Brill, 1899; Ph. S. van Ronkel, Supplement-Catalogus der Maleische en Mi-nangkabausche Handschriften in deLeidsche Universiteits-Bibliotheek, Leiden,Brill, 1921.

22.The PNI catalogue entry for W.G. Shellabear'sAn English-Malay Dictionary, Singapore,Methodist Publishing House, 1916, reads"Dipindjam oleh Gunseikanbu Soombu,hilang".

23. A.K.D[alby], "Malay Lithographs Collectedby T.J. Chamberlain", typescript, CambridgeUniversity Library, [1985].

24. Koleksi Sastera Peranakan dalam PeganganPerpustakaan Universiti Malaya, KualaLumpur, Perpustakaan Universiti Malaya,1979.

25. Katalog Koleksi Melayu Perpustakaan Univer-siti Malaya/Catalogue of the Malay Collec-tion, University of Malaya Library, KualaLumpur, Perpustakaan Universiti Malaya,1980; Koleksi Za 'be, Kuala Lumpur, Perpus-takaan Universiti Malaya, 1976.

26. Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropol-ogy, Leiden, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-,Land- en Vol ken kunde, 1984, pp.3-4.

27. Catalogus der Koloniale Bibliotheek van hetKoninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- enVolkenkunde van Neoenenascn-mal« en hetIndisch Genootschap, door G.P. Rouffaer &w.G. Muller, 's Gravenhage, Martinus Nijhoff,1908; and Supplements.

28. Ibrahim Kassim, "Katalog Manuskrip", De-wan Bahasa, jil. 17, bil. 11 (1973), hal. 516-535.

29. T.H. Darlow & H.F. Moule, Historical Cata-logue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scrip-ture in the Library of the British and ForeignBible Society, 2 volumes, London, The BibleHouse, 1903, 1911. Volume II: Polyglotsand Languages Other than English.

30. Bibliografi Buku-Buku Nadir dalam Perpus-takaan Negara Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur,Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia, 1982; Bib-liografi Buku-Buku Nadir Ma/aysiana/Bibli-

ography of Malaysiana Rare Books, [KualaLumpur], Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia,1982.

31. Cf.P. Lim Pui Huen, "A trail of libraries: a per-sonal memoir", in Michael Cheng (ed), Li-brary Association of Singapore Silver Jubi-lee 1955-1980, Singapore, Library Associa-tion of Singapore, 1980, p.30; Lim, Librar-ies, pp.47-52.

32. Of the published bibliographies, W. Evans(ed), Catalogue of Books in the Library of thelate Mr. D. Logan ... presented by the Go-vernment of the Straits Settlements to thePenang Library, Penang, Criterion Press,1911, has four relevant items; Robert Green-ing (comp), Penang Library. Catalogue underAuthors' Names. De.cember 1922, Penang,Criterion Press, [1923]. has but one.

33. Mohd. Taib Osman, "Laporan: naskhah2 danalatan2 budaya Melayu di beberapa pusatpengajian di-Great Br~ain dan Jerman Barat",Nusantara, bil. 1 (Januari 1972), pp.60-82.

34. Wan Abdul Kadir, Budaya Popular DalamMasyarakat Melayu Bandaran, Kuala Lum-pur, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1988,bab 3-4.

35. H.M.J. Maier and G.L. Koster, "A Fishy Story:Exercises in Reading the Syair Ikan Teru-buk", in C.D. Grijns & S.O. Robson (eds),Cultural Contact and Textual Interpretation,Dordrecht, Foris, 1986 (Verhandelingen vanhet KITLV 115), pp.204-218, take further thework pioneered by H. Overbeck in the 1920's- see his "Malay animal and flower shaers",JMBRAS, vol. 12, pt. 2 (1934), pp.108-148and other JMBRAS articles.

36. Winarti Partaningrat (eo),'Masterlist of SoutheastAsian Microforms, referred to above. Notehowever that the descriptions of the mate-rial already listed is based on the cataloguedescriptions of the contributing libraries,and will sometimes need to be corrected:cf. remarks above concerning the SingaporeNational Library

37. Djubaedah Mustafa (ed & comp), KatalogBahasa dan Sastera Indonesia-Daerah:Koleksi Perpustakaan Nasionaf, Jakarta,Perpustakaan Nasional, 1981.

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