“May I borrow archives?” Such words were often heard by Ully Isnaeni Effendi, A.Md., S.E, staff from the Archives of Universitas Gadjah Mada. She was surprised that such sentences were spoken. She was surprised that many people see archives as library. She quickly explained archives to visitors in detail.
Ully said that an alumni of UGM came from Jakarta to the Archvies just to know the news of their friends in the same class. She would explain to them how to search for their friends.
UGM Archives has also to give information on the history of the building establishment, land status, lecturer’s residence and foreign lecturers teaching at UGM. This forces all staff in the Archives to read more and arrange many manuscripts and documents.
All the hard work in giving service to users has brought achievement to Ully Isnaneni Effendi in 2012, making her the first winner in the Archiving Writing Competition held by the National Archives (ANRI) for the functional occupation category with the title Archivist and Information Sharing to Society.
To Ully, the competition was challenging. It was her first participation in the event and her paper was selected out of 27 texts. Her writing was considered the best by five juries led by Drs. Mustari Irawan, MPA (ANRI), member Chatarina Saptorini, S.H., M.Si (ANRI), Drs. Bambang Iwan, M.Hum (Association of Indonesian Archivists), Prof. Dr. Rahayu Surtiati Hidayat (Universitas Indonesia) and Jajang Jamaludin (Tempo magazine).
“I was glad obviously, this was my first time in participating in the competition which is annualy held by the ANRI,” she said. She explained she had done some exploration on the theme of the writing.
Working in the Archives Information Service, Ully felt it necessary to put down in writing how archives are managed and up until they are used by users. “My writing is on what really happened at Archives up from archives management until they are received by users,” she said. An example is how she tries to make the static archives which are open to public really accessible to public. “It is how to make archives management a point of finding so that the information can be used or accessed by society,” said Ully, who also teaches at Diploma Programme of Archiving in UGM Vocational School.