Boosting Communication Skills of Millennial Generation
through Bibliobattle
Susanti Agustina and Doddy Rusmono
Library and Information Science Study Program, Department of Curriculum and Educational Technology, Faculty of
Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia., Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: bibliobattle, book, communication, millennial generation, literacy, psycholinguistics.
Abstract: Expressing, listening and arguing skills in communication are important competencies in the 21st Century.
Subjects of the present research are millennial generation of 18-21 students highly influenced by technology,
internet, social media, and great economic recession. How to boost communication and literacy skills in
millennial generation, which have characteristics of wanting to have freedom of expression and speech,
appreciating openness, sincerity, and integrity, deals with collaborative and interactive relationship. This
phenomenon is examined by an action research method. Informants involved in the present study were 45
students. A sampling technique was used and it employed 40 people sampled with reliability level of 95%.
Bibliobattle is a positive competition about technique of studying favorite book (biblio). Bibliobattle action
in this study is recorded by audiovisual technology and is published on Facebook. After doing a practice test
of 16 times at Bibliobattle challenge, the students show reflection supporting the conclusion and implication
for communication skill and psycholinguistics. Bibliobattle elaborates the activities on reading books,
audiovisual technology, and social media relevant to psychological characteristics of millennial generation,
making reading activity valuable, exhilarating, while characterizing its existence in wider community. The
result of the study shows that Bibliobattle is one way to boost communication and literacy skills.
1 INTRODUCTION
Millennial generation is different from other
generations in terms of especially their
communication skill. In the Bibliobattle, successful
presenter of a book relies on how he conveys the
content of his chosen book. The most attractive way
using a social medium of approaching his audience.
This generation know for sure what to share to gain
interests. The present study focused on what would
not work when it comes to gain this generations
interests: a transfer from 9 to 5 business hours to
intranet software, social media, chat and email
(Axero, 2017). Bibliobattle was first initiated on
November 15th in 2016 in Indonesia at Perpustakaan
Kementerian Sosial RI (Ministry of Social Matters of
The Republic of Indonesia Library). Bibliobattle was
introduced online for the first time on January 17th
2017 at Komunitas Biblioterapi Indonesia (Indonesia
Bibliotheraphy Community). This initiation was then
followed by an application of Bibliotheraphy in
classroom sessions of Reading Interest Guidance
lectures for students of Library and Information
Science Study Program-Department of Curriculum
and Educational Technology-Faculty of Education-
Indonesia University of Education (Universitas
Pendidikan Indonesia) in Bandung on February 18,
2017. The locus of the present study refers to a
Bibliobattle accomplished as an assignment of getting
accustomed for the students to be in the habit of
reading at the study program. The students of the year
2016 born in 1998 or later as the subjects of the study
are those in their second semester belonging to the
category of millennial generation. The focus of this
review is on the millennial generation. The work
habits of millennial generation are similarly
extrapolated from Howe and Strauss (2000), (Martin
and Tulgan, 2002), (Schooley, 2005). The
“millenials” born between 1980-2000, have an innate
ability to use technology, are comfortably
multitasking while using a diverse range of digital
media, and literally demand interactivity as they
construct knowledge. (Reves and Oh, 2xxx).
Debard, R.D. (2004, pp.33-45) cited by Reves and
Oh (p. 299), says12 criteria of Millennials generation.
Those criteria comprise the millennials generation
Agustina, S. and Rusmono, D.
Boosting Communication Skills of Millennial Generation through Bibliobattle.
DOI: 10.5220/0007167403650371
In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference
on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 365-371
ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
365

having high trust in authority, being committed as
loyalty to institutions, following a hero of integrity as
most admire, building parallel careers to career goals,
being primarily rewarded by work they consider
meaningful, intruding to be parent-child involvement,
being sure to have children, being sure protected as
children for family life, being structured of
accountability for education, feedback whenever they
want it to evaluation, craved community for political
orientation, and “how do we built it?” senses remains
as the big question.
Bibliobattle implemented at Perpustakaan
Kementerian Sosial RI tends to be in accordance with
the real Bibliobattle that is, using books collected by
the library as books selected by participants of the
study in the mode of books they like. The participants
were then asked to read and present the content of the
book for 5 minutes followed by questions asked by
their fellow students as an audience. The best book
was then chosen as the best by the participates and
audience as well. Bibliobattle is a kind of simple
playful activity of analyzing books. Bibliobattle is a
social initiative of analyzing newly published books
developed for the first time in Kyoto University in
Japan in 2007. Today, people make use of
Bibliotheraphy to get connected widely with cultural
organizations through universities, libraries and book
stores. What is significantly benefited includes
searching for good books, sharing information,
enhancing willingness to come to class sessions for
lectures, making betterments in terms of social
communication, to name a few.
Procedural steps of benefiting from
Bibliotheraphy are, firstly, coming with a favourite
book or, a book students think would be interesting to
read. Secondly, sharing the content of the book of
your liking for 5 minutes. Thirdly, upon completing
your presentation, all participants discuss the
student’s book for around 3 minutes. Fourthly,
following the discussion, the best book will be chosen
by all participants. The best book should meet the
requirements of being wanted to be the one all
participants (the students, that is) really want to read.
The criterion to be met is “a book you really want to
read!” This chosen book is then declared as “Book of
the Day” or, Champ-bon in Japanese language.
Other additional rules apply, namely 1) a
presenter should consider the book to be presented in
the first place despite other books being
recommended, 2) adjudicators may determine a
theme for selecting the book, 3) presentation should
last for 5 minutes or less using a countdown mode, 4)
no flyers, slides or other types of data is allowed, 5)
the presenter should make use of every minute within
the 5 minute time allotted to share the content of the
book, 6).Audience is not allowed to criticize or
finding faults of others’. Audience may, instead, ask
questions to evaluate the book all students are
interested a lot to read, 7) all participants are
supposed to enjoy every minute of this bibliobattle, 8)
a presenter is not allowed to choose a book by
himself, 9) the winner of the “Book of The Day” is
decided based on a democratic way through voting by
all participants.
No other parties or certain eligible groups of
teachers, judges, chairs are allowed to decide on the
matters of deciding on who wins the competition. The
first Bibliobattle took place in the library of the
ministry of social affairs involving 6 presenters. This
competition offered 3 themes including children’s
social issues, motivation and, hobby. Yet, as it
develops, the object of presentation was not limited to
books being presented but it can take other objects
such as magazines, DVDs, films as they are part of
the library collections.
The objects other than books seem like irrelevant
to the term “bibliobattle”. Since they are object
different in shapes and characteristics. The word
“biblio” itself denotes “books”. The librarians would
say that what matters is not the presenters though.
What is emphasized is “the search for a favorite
book”. Bibliobattle has every way to help librarians
promote the collections it holds and the services they
provide. In the present study, rules of the activity,
procedures, organization process of forming
standards, efficiency factors are introduced.
Trends as they exist in Japan give their flair to an
initiation of enhancing the ability of communicating
using videos as a medium of instruction connected to
social media like Facebook by the Z Generation
having to do with books, educational institutions
focusing on enhancing the ability to use language, and
a cultural conduct of establishing communication.
One thing for sure is that there is a crystal
difference between “other-than-book” materials and
books in Bibliobattle. In using a video, the presenters
share their books by recording the materials by way
of uploading them to their Facebook accounts for the
period of 16 weeks. During the period, at least 16
books in average are shared through their
presentation. It brings with it impact in the form of
success story during their study as coined by Hersh
and Merrow (2005) “The book and video present
interviews and extensive data that undermine the
argument that the Millennial Generation is well
prepared and motivated to succeed in higher
education”.
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
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The present study was conducted to reflect the
activities of Bibliobattle Challenge comprising of
why the participants are eagered to do the activities
and how they are impressed with the experiences they
gain and how it works using video recordings,
difficulties they face, the changes they find after
getting exposed in Bibliobattle Challenge – all of
which are formulated in written interviews using
reflective questions.
2 METHOD
This research used a qualitative method with a case
study as an approach. A case study was chosen since
the object of the research (the Bibliobattle Challenge,
that is) has uniqueness and worth investigating.
Bibliobattle Challenge works with video recording
uploaded to Facebook social media. The case study
focused on the presenter’s reflection after undergoing
Bibliobattle Challenge in which the answers to the
questions around the facts why and how bibliobattle
challenge can be so interesting while actually their
status as millennial generation proves to be far from
being o erwhelmed by such facts. Other than that, it
is also proven that bibliobattle has every possibility to
alleviate the participants’ capability of
communicating and therefore sweep away all those
less than confident feelings and, facilitate them to
keep existing in social media world (Agustina, 2017).
Fundamental concept of Case study holds
descriptive mode prior to analysing. Stark and
Torrance (2006) insist that Case study assumes that
social activity is created through social interaction,
albeit situated in particular contexts and histories, and
seeks to identify and describe before trying to analyse
and theorize. As for putting forward the topic,
analysing in depth using reflective questions comes
first. Questions asked to Library and Information
Science (LIS) students were loaded with matters of
mental and psychological constraints in terms of
reading habit, reading capacity, understanding
passage, and enhancing a capability of
communication.
Reflective questions were aimed to make the
second semester students who belong to a millennial
generation able to generate meaningfulness from
within themselves and thus get into their very deep
part of their beings every part of the process they are
involved in the Bibliobattle Challenge. Evidence
needs to be made existed here as what Yin (1981) was
cited when saying “Empirical inquiry that
investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its
real-life context, when the boundaries between
phenomenon and context are not clearly evident, and
in which multiple sources of evidence are used”.
Part of the reason to employ case study is that it
facilitates room for studying, explaining or,
interpreting a case in its natural contexts without
external intervention. The trend of case study of the
present research highlights a set of decisions and why
the idea of Bibliobattle Challenge was taken as a
topic, how the idea was considered worth studying in
a class session as a subject of lectures, and what
results were significant as a tool to enhance a
communication skill (Schramm in Yin, 1981). The
steps of employing a case study involves case
identification, selection of the case, field work, data
processing, interpretation and explanation of results
of the research.
Data analysis method in this case study used the
technique of inputting information into a different
list, categorization in the form of matrics, placing real
facts into the categorization, creating flow-chart data
analysis and other set of data to examine the collected
data, tabulating the frequency of different events,
examining the complexity of tabulation and its
relation with calculating numbers in their second
phase such as means and variants, and inputting
information in a chronological order or using other
scheme of time. Steps taken in analyzing were based
on theoretical propositions, starting from a
descriptive approach towards the student’s
percentage quality of Bibliobattle Challenge.
The validity of the present study construction used
multi-sources evidence, the key informants in this
case the students, and reviewing recorded video of
Bibliobattle made by the students. Internal validity
test used case study tactics of pairing and data
analysis tactics while reliability was gained through
case study protocols.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Learning to Communicate through
Bibliobattle
Bibliobattle can enhance interpersonal
communication. One thing for sure is that a matter of
achieving communicative two-party exchanges
works the way it should be. It should be identified
whether the two parties involved in the
communication know each other’s sense of
importance and their way of thinking, and whether
they manage to decide and an interesting topic in a
relatively short time of 3 – 5 minutes.
Boosting Communication Skills of Millennial Generation through Bibliobattle
367

Bibliobattle does not only focus on the parties but
also on other parties (Hui and Jun, 2013) by
uploading social media network such as Facebook.
They also learn more than just the technology as
something they are closer to as millennial generation.
They learn how to develop their self-confidence since
uploading to Facebook encourages others to watch
the Bibliobattle presentation and evaluate their
performance at the same time. Eventually, those
watching the performance will be more than likely
interested in reading the books “offered”. This way,
they will also get more familiar with Bibliobattle and
how it works to facilitate reading. Lancaster, L.C.
and Stillman, D., (2004) echoe these facts when
saying “The attitude factor of millennial generation is
have appreciate diversity, prefer to collaborate
instead of being ordered, and are very pragmatic
when solving problems”.
Learning to communicate well through
Bibliobattle consistently every week for 16 weeks
proves to help them communicate with each other
more frequently and it reflects promising teaching-
learning process in that sharing information, selecting
and categorizing good books, accelerating
understanding the contents of books leading to
increased reading interest and communication skill.
Sharing information on books by uploading
videos to social media network like Facebook give
them a limitless experience of learning and widen
their horizon as well.
Facebook provides them with rooms for
commenting on the presentation and performance by
asking questions, for instance. Answers to the
questions will eventually bring them to the interest on
the questioners’ part and therefore urge the followers
(the questioners, that is) to decide by saying “I am
getting attracted to read the book”. They,
consequently, are successful in the Bibliobattle. The
books then introduce them to the world of
Bibliobattle through recorded videos in Facebook. To
generate some creativity, topics are not limited to
certain fields and they are free to choose a fiction
book or a non-fiction book as its genre. Table 1 below
shows a detailed range of grasp on the student’s part.
Table 1: Reflective questions 1.
The field I learn much
Frequency (f)
1. Bibliobattle
2. Communication, that is,
understanding message in a
text, plots, flows,
meanings, and sending
messages about books I
read, talking in front of a
camera, editting chats in
the videos, learning to build
self confidence when
telling a story.
3. Alotting time to read
4. Library and books
5. Efficient and quick
technique of reading
6. Introducing the culture of
literacy
7. Education, religion.
8. Generating the flair of
reading interest
2
11
5
1
14
2
2
9
Total number
46
Source: writer’s construction (2017)
Reflective questions are characterized by giving
opportunities to informants to answer in more than
one answer so that although the number of informants
is more than 40, the table of frequency indicates that
the total frequency of answers shows 46 in number. It
happens because there is an informant answering
more than one answer. As Agustina (2017) extends
“Books of literature can play an important role in the
development as a medium for self-adjustment, and
reflection”.
In average, they learn a lot in the part of technique
or quick and efficient reading method. Being quick,
in the sense that students are obliged to upload 1 video
of at least at 1 title in 1 week. Being efficient, in the
sense that in reading through Bibliobattle they are
taught how to manage time during a semester.
The second highest frequency resulting from the
reflective questions is, as said, “I learn a lot from the
communication”. Communicating here embraces the
ability to listen, to see attentively, to understand, to
read, to write, to present the content of a selected
book, making a video, editing the video on
Bibliobattle before it is uploaded.
The millennial generation have work habits. They
have an optimistic outlook (Lancaster, L.C, and
Stillman, D., 2004).
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
368

3.2 Difficulties in Answering the
Bibliobattle Challenges
Table 2 below shows a detailed range of grasp on the
student’s part.
Table 2: Reflective questions 2.
The time I find difficulties
Frequency (f)
1. Understanding the
content/heavily unfamiliar
words, understanding
content/ sentences too
complicatedly structured,
typography.
2. Spending time to read
thoroughly 1 book every
week.
3. Reading a book with many
pages,
4. recording videos and
presenting a book.
5. Getting rid of being lazy to
read.
6. Deciding what book to read
7. Memorizing what to tell in a
recorded video
8. Uploading video to
Facebook
5
16
2
12
1
3
5
3
Total number
47
Source: writer’s construction (2017)
Alotting time to doing Bibliobattle is found.
Technical aspects contribute to raising problems.
Millennial generation has very dynamic activities that
they are called multitasking people. Other than that,
difficulties dealing with technical aspects such as
video recording and presenting the book emerges.
Some possible reasons are the weak Internet
connection, no Wifi available, and limited duration of
video recording making it possible for editing process
several times. Other difficulty showing how crucial it
is for the participants to have a basic communication
skill is memorizing. They might find it uncomfortable
to use words in expressing fluently during the video
recording. Nevertheless, these problems are normal to
some extent. At least they learn something valuable:
skills of communicating ideas enhanced. Along the
way, they admit that Bibliobattle has changed the
patterns of their daily communication.
3.3 Changes Following Bibliobattle
Challenge
Table 3 below shows a detailed range of grasp on the
student’s part in that their feelings towards reading
change to some extent.
Table 3: Reflective questions 3.
The changes I feel
Frequency (f)
1. Reading innitiatives
2. Easier way of remembering
and grasping the plots of
story
3. Reading consistency and
interest
4. Psychology, attitude,
behaviour, giving possitive
comments, way of thinking,
confidence.
5. Insisting to upload
Bibliobattle video for publik
6. Writing and speaking with
more ease because of the
vocabularies increased
7. Interacting through social
media
7
3
24
6
2
3
1
Total number
46
Source: writer’s construction (2017)
Bibliobattle brings with it changes in several
aspects: reading interest mainly, reading consistency,
and reading behaviour. Those who’s intense of
reading are less than sufficient find reading
meaningful and fruitfull after doing the activities of
Bibliobattle. Additional changes happens following
Bibliobattle as the psychological aspects are put into
the matter: attitude, behaviour, thinking manners,
self-confidence. Even more impressive to the
participants namely confidence proves to be
comments given by audience on their video showing.
Their being sure of the works they create pays off.
Lancaster, L.C. and Stillman, D., (2002) coin that the
millennial generation have work habits, they are self-
assured and are achievement focused.
3.4 Impression on Bibliobattle
Challenge
Table 4 below shows a detailed range of grasp on the
participant’s part in that their impressions in
challenges offered are generated.
Table 4: Reflective questions 4.
Impressive sides felt during
Bibliobattle Challenge
Frequency (f)
1. Video recording and
facebook uploading
2. Managing groggy
3. Forgetting what a book is
all about
4. Learning to share what I
have read
5. Meeting the deadline
17
2
1
2
2
Boosting Communication Skills of Millennial Generation through Bibliobattle
369

Impressive sides felt during
Bibliobattle Challenge
Frequency (f)
6. People watching the video
and giving positive
comments on it
7. Missing no chance to read
8. Searching for more books
9. I am growing to be fond of
reading book
10. Doing book exchanging
with friends
11. Generating flair of reading
to myself and others
12. Self actualization
11
1
5
3
1
3
3
Total number
51
Source: writer’s construction (2017)
Bibliobattle Challenge makes the millennial
generation so impressed. One impression refers to the
skill of communication at its basic sense. The most
impressive part to the participants is the time they
realize that their video showing and their Facebook
uploading are appreciated by other participants as
audience. “People I respect give positive comments
to the activities of Bibliobattle Challenge” (HN).
Other expression of impression comes from DC: “I
am so much impressed with what I get from reading
The Devil Who Tamed Her just because the book is a
novel translated telling about some history. “Video
recording I make makes me get forgotten easily.
Then, I decide to make a cheat helping me to read
while talking in front of the camera about the content
of the video” (DC). “We need to get well prepared
before presenting on Bibliobattle since it has a noble
mission a good book has to tell (NG). Furthermore,
Bibliobattle has been a pleasing activity and helps me
to build a reading habit, enhance my communication
skill and self-confidence” FSI says “in facing the
challenges of Bibliobattle Challenge, I feel like my
self-confidence develops a bit, especially when
talking in front of the camera, my sense of creativity
grows to a certain degree making it plausible to make
use of the video showing”.
Conducive impression in terms of communication
comes from S who says that “when my old friends ask
me about Bibliobattle, they praise me for my better
interest in reading books”. Even more impressive is
that Bibliobattle is said to fit with the millennial
generation in every specific way. “They believe in
strong morals and serving the community, they are
aware of diversity”.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Communication skill as gained by the millennial
generation can be made even sharpened through
Bibliobattle challenging activities. The challenges
offered by Bibliobattle is basically aimed at making
efforts to generate habit and interest in reading
leading to promoting presentation ability or public
speaking skill of the participants in communicating
their ideas including interpersonal communication.
In the context of learning, the use of appropriate
language as a means of communication by the
learners is geared towards various betterments.
Communicating with excellence, listening
attentively, reading correctly, understanding well,
reading with joy, writing with comprehensible sense,
presenting with accuracy, and allowing others to
benefit from the book reading experiences makes a
difference. In their own words, telling stories about a
book and its usefulness is far-reaching dreams in
daily life. Carr and Ann (2011, p.242), Davidson
(2011, p. 12-16), Deloitte (2011), Few (2011, p.10),
Kaidi, (2012), Maritz et al (2014, p. 3) echoe that
storytelling offers various advantages. It facilitates
engaging and interactive conversations, is intuitive,
stimulates the brain and aids recall, is simplified,
increases impact and facilitates understanding”.
The challenges of Bibliobattle are in harmony
with the characteristic of millennial generation. In
this case, for further benefiting the advantages,
university librarians especially, should actually feel
free to adopt and apply Bibliobattle in their excellent
attractive services to the user belonging to the
millennial generation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Through this acknowledgement, we express our
sincere gratitude to those who have been associated
with this research project and have supported us in
making it a worthwhile experience. We extend our
thanks to our students of batch 2016 majoring in
library and information science, Indonesia
Bibliotherapy Community, and also Ms Lulu Lusiana
of the library of Kemensos RI as a very resourceful
informant.
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Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
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