The problem starts with broad misunderstanding of who does this fuzzy thing called Indonesian studies. Knowledge workers do it -- these are people whose work is centered around creating, using, sharing and applying information. It is parochial thinking to consider Indonesian studies only, or even mainly, the pastime of academics, who are, it must be said, collectively very stingy in sharing their product on the public net in virtually any net place. They are still by and large secluded print people writing mainly for very narrow audiences with limited lifetimes.
Almost any Google advanced web search using keywords uniquely relevant to Indonesia and seeking pdf, doc, wpd, xls, ppt or even rtf files shows the relatively modest role of academics. Just compare search results from only the edu domain with those from all the public web. You have to use online library catalogs or Google Scholar, followed by hardly universally accessible licensed databases, to discover, then see, full-text published academic articles online relating to matters Indonesian. Surprisingly, major bookstore sites everywhere are are also underwhelming in their Indonesia holdings. These patterns hold for academic authors of all nationalities writing in any language.
Dirge
But isn't Indonesian studies beset, like most fields, by information overload, in print and in the net? Indeed, that is true. But not for all categories of information. And this leads to the most grating aspects of my lament, all of which are, in theory, fixable.
First, search skills among the online mob remain rudimentary. Second, selection of types of net places to search is in practice far too constrained. Third, pro-active individual and group creation of net knowledge is lethargic.
Everybody Googles, that's good. But how, that's the rub. Minimally, you ought to be using a Google advanced websearch page, not the familiar spare default classic homepage. If you can't break away from the all too familiar, at least learn a few Google operators to use, special or simple.
Does all this seem too much? Go back to basic search guidance.
Yes, we can!Not to be a pedant, no one really simply Googles. Google has many specialized searchable databases customized for types of content and users. Most will bring you far different Indonesia-related results than a general websearch. At least once try Googling blogs, books, catalogs, discussion groups, your own hard disk, your Gmails, a directory, planet earth, images, maps, news, news archives, products for sale, scholarly papers, videos, the US government's online holdings, operating systems documentation, and a host of other plain practical omissions from your repertoire.
A few more Googling admonitions. Use Google's (and others') tools for finding only material in specific other languages (including in Indonesian on AlltheWeb) while websearching. After searching in languages you don't normally read (maybe Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese), see if Google's language tools will render it into English or another language you prefer. FoxLingo is a magnificent source for translation sites and, optionally, a stunning Firefox add-on.
Read more about Indonesia faster. Try Google Reader to keep current effortlessly on new content (web feeds) posted to (not just blogs, but) any syndicated webpage (also called a webfeed). Reader has several simple built-in ways for finding content you want. You can even put your very own customized Indonesia Google News searches into Reader.
You can get quick-click button access to virtually all Google services by installing a Google Toolbar in your browser (choose the Firefox version, if possible, if not, use the Explorer version). You can integrate your entire net activity on Indonesia into your own almost magically made private personal website through iGoogle. Your iGoogle site makes a very satisfying browser startpage. Google Sites allows you to build quickly a nice public website for sharing your online Indonesia studies tools.
Beyond Google
Google deliberately does not (and cannot) index everything on the web for you. Try the jux2 search engine which places the results of Google,Yahoo, and MSN searches side-by-side (juxtaposition, hence the name). For example, it is a dirty little-known secret that Google is not exactly going to overwhelm you with competitor Yahoo! pages. Use jux2 to verify this by searching in it for two Yahoo! groups, indonesian-studies and east-timor-studies lists. How many years has Google hoodwinked you?
More zeal is needed by virtually everyone who has read this far to create new Indonesia-related search tools and content. For example, on Rollyo (for roll-your-own search engine), there are now a sizable number of Indonesia-related searchrolls. On Eurekster, there are modifiable search engines called swickis. Especially helpful are clustering search engines like Ask using Teoma search engine, and Clusty, using Vivisimo search engine. Try these pre-set websearches I created using just the keyword Indonesia on first, Ask (clusters on right side of search results), then Clusty (clusters on left side of search results) to see which one you prefer. I'm not terribly enthused about them but meta-search engines like Dogpile (simple), Mamma (subtle) and Zuula (whopping) comprise yet another search strategy. The learning curve for all the above (except searchrolls) is not steep.
Grow Collegiality
The full-range of possibilities in using the net for doing collaborative research on Indonesia go well beyond the scope of this brief essay. Some are straightforward -- use more personal blogs focused on Indonesia, team blogs, aggregator blogs (another example here) , phlogs (or here),
multiple-moderator lists, videos (or here), podcasting (or here), website columns, online libraries, and job boards. Help to flesh out Indonesia content on the multiple language Wikipedias.
Other options stray from beaten paths. Besides copious file-sharing and storage sites -- try here and here and here -- mashups and wikis (click here and here for some relevant lists) yield and incredible range of possibilities.
Instant messaging, now mostly free and increasingly multimedia like the spacehog but immensely popular Yahoo! Messenger, plus inexpensive internet telephony (like Skype , better than landline voice, now with very good video, or choose from Alexa's long list of permutations) , and social networking sites (like Facebook or Friendster or others mentioned in this Wikipedia list) create once unthinkable opportunities to discover and to work with potential Indonesian studies knowledge workers near and far.
Need to do advanced project management and collaboration? This, too, can now be done at places like Basecamp, WebOffice, and CentralDesktop.
Forgot something? In the field and worried you might need something stored only on your home or office PC? No problem anymore. Remote control software is here and implemented via broadband. You install the software in advance on both the near and remote computers. Think hard about security issues before you do it, but waiting for you are services like LogMeIn, and GoToMyPC. If the magic of remote access scares you, just carry your key programs with you on a flash drive using Portable Apps.
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