Improve Student Reading Interest with Antusias Membaca!

July 09, 2012

By Christanto

Editor Christanto

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - Reading is one of the important activities, from which a variety of benefits and information can be obtained. Reading is, in fact, an inseparable part of student's routine life. Wishing to improve student reading interest, Dwininta Widiastuti (Biology 2007) under the Bureau of Communication and Information of ITB Student Executive Body (KM) initiated a program named "Antusias Membaca!" (Enthusiastic Reading).

Antusias Membaca! is a project initiated by KM ITB to continuously improve student reading interest. ITB students spend much of their time in public spaces doing student extracurricular activities. Equipped with this fact, KM ITB puts magazines and popular sciences readings on small shelves in campus corners. This helps meeting the demand for information in this globalization era.

Currently, 9 shelves have been positioned at various strategic areas in campus. The shelves have been put there since 30 April 2012, with the help from 1977 ITB Alumni Association, and supported by ITB Student Affairs Department and ITB Directorate of Infrastructure. The shelves are located at the East GKU, West Campus Center terrace, West Campus Center basement, near the ATM Center, Civil Engineering Department Student Longue, Oktagon building, TVST building, and on Labtek V wifi area.

The shelves were mostly filled with popular science magazines like National Geograhic, Energi, Soul of Campus, and EASE Magazine written by AIESEC. But besides these magazines, Antusias Membaca! also started to put some profession-based magazines, such as E!Bio written by Student Association of School of Life Sciences and Technologies (HIMASITH NYMPHAEA), Geosphere written by Student Association of Geodetic Engineering (IMG), and Cremona written by Student Association of Civil Engineering (HMS).

According to Aldila Pradhana (Geodetic Engineering 2008), the project's Partnership Manager, the profession-based magazines contain a lot of educational contents. Unfortunately, these magazines are difficult to find because of the limited distribution. He currently attempts to form collaboration with Student Association of Regional & City Planning (HMP) to put their profession-based magazine, The Planners, on the shelves.

With the distribution of Antusias Membaca! shelves, Aldila and the team expect that ITB students have increased interest on popular science writings. In addition, Antusias Membaca! should be a place where students easily find the profession-based magazines.