National Press Musem
It was the
first time I visited Press Museum but I had passed it several times. My curiosity
led me to visit this place while I was accompanying my younger brother who had
a try out for university entrance. Lucky me, I had a motorcycle with me so I could
go anywhere around Surakarta.
It was
Sunday and I was a little afraid that the museum was closed. Unfortunately, it
opened. The security welcomed me kindly. He asked me to park my motorcycle next
to his office and showed me the way to enter the building. It is free.
Front door
Press Museum
building has unique architecture. It is located right at the corner of a
crossroad. There are two big newspapers place. Everybody who passes the road
may read the newspaper. That’s for public. In from of the building, there are
dragon statues. They are awesome. When you go inside at the main building, you
will see some statues of press pioneers in Indonesia. You can also see some old
or we could say very old newspapers and magazines displayed in a glass table. Even
the papers are getting brown.
The statues
Very old magazines
Very old magazines and newspapers
Besides the
statues, old magazines and newspapers, there is an old machine. It is a
historical machine since it helps Gusti Nurul, the Princess of Surakarta
Palace, to dance in Netherland. The story is Gusti Nurul was invited to perform
Javanese dance in Netherland Kingdom but it was impossible to bring all the
gamelan with her. So, the machine was used to send the sound of gamelan which is
played in Indonesia to Netherland. That’s cool.
The Machine
Next, I visited
multimedia room. It is a room with internet connection. Unfortunately, some of
the computers are out of order. Next room is library. It is in the second
floor. The place is nice equipped with air conditioner. The collections are
books in general. Then I went to the next room, it is a digital room. Some
computers are provided with digital archives. Digital archives mean very old
magazines and newspapers are scanned and saved in the computer. Almost all of
them are in forms of pdf and jpg.
Multimedia room
Library
Digital room
Digitalized
One of old ads
I went
upstairs accompanied by an officer. She showed me a room with many collections
of new newspapers and magazines. The amazing one is that those newspapers and
magazines come from all over Indonesia. The newspapers and magazines publisher
send their product regularly. That’s awesome. You visit one place but you can
get the news from all over Indonesia.
All around Indonesia
It's here, in Surakarta
