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2012-79402 3/3/16
Two Most Critical Challenges for Public Libraries, Here and in the US
In 2010, the American Library Association (ALA) was nearing their election
season and their two presidential candidates were asked to make a statement about
the two most critical challenges public libraries currently face. The ALA community
deemed the two most critical problems to be specifically about funding and
technology. I would first like to say that these two issues are indeed most critical in
public libraries; not only in the US but also here in the Philippines. While the two
candidates had slight differences in what strategies to use, they both had
mentioned in her statement that it is “critical for a strong and successful public
library to receive adequate funding”. This actually holds true for any institution to
thrive in today’s very competitive service market. Obtaining funds for public libraries
can be highly complicated and more importantly highly political. Two key factors that
observers may not be wary of is that public libraries are considered a government
agency; thus they would have to fight and justify for the government to add or even
just to keep funding them. In 2010, America’s economy had recently turned sour and
agencies were in a proverbial rumble to maintain funding. And the second key factor
(actually related to the issue of funding) is valuation. We are now living in the so-
called “digital age” and with the widespread use of the internet and mobile devices,
traditional public libraries have unfortunately lost the appeal it once had. A person
relics of the past, understandably with good reason. Why go to the library if you can
just Google any information you wanted on your phone? This pedestrian opinion
unfortunately holds true for parent organizations from which libraries (including
public ones) acquire funding. In the case of public libraries, government agencies or
whoever the powers that be have poor valuation of said public libraries.
these strategies include lobbying with elected officials for support, organizing
grassroot campaigns, and partnerining with organizations related to the cause of the
library. These strategies sound hopeful specifically for their country because they
have a lot of organizations that share the cause of maintaining the relevance of
libraries, public and otherwise. But specifically speaking for the libraries in our
country, I am inclined to make an educated assumption that the same strategies will
not work. If I am to speak boldly, I would have to say that our government and much
of our elected officials really do not care about libraries. I doubt they even care all
that much about education, what with the K-12 issue still going on as of the moment.
I could easily write a ten-page essay as to how our government doesn’t care about the
fear any of the next possible administrations, barring Miriam Santiago’s) appear to
have no push for the betterment in education of the Filipino people. Schools are
underfunded, the country’s academic program is ill-implemented (at best), and the
state of many public libraries are absolutely abhorrent. Second, CHED and DepEd
seem to not give a damn about the library programs in any level of standard
education. If you check CHED and DepEd’s criteria for library accreditation online,
you could (as a person of the academe) easily deem it as incompetent. Third, there is
very little evident push coming from either public or private sectors for Filipinos to
society that cares very little about thinking critically. It makes sense to me that
elected and hopeful government officials give little to no push to better educate
Filipinos; because they would lose the unthinking sheep who would otherwise vote
stated that we are now living in the digital age. In an era where Facebook is generally
deemed necessary for various aspects of one’s life, traditional libraries that fail to
address the current technological needs of its community have no choice but to perish.
In the two candidate’s statement regarding this issue, they likewise expressed
possible solutions such as overhauling their staff to primarily include people who are
the issue of technology in libraries, we inevitably go back to the first issue of funding.
The issue unfortunately keeps coming back to money matters, and that’s where it
always keeps bottle-necking. Going back to our country, it pains me that while our
public libraries struggle very hard to stay relevant, budget constraints just get in the
way. For example, our local public library here in Brgy. Talipapa, Tandang Sora tries
to stay relevant by having personal computers with internet access. The problem is
that the personal computers are only capable of running Windows 2000. To give
context, the most current Windows OS right now is Windows 10—this means that my
local public library is 5 generations behind. And while they do offer internet access,
they do so at abysmally slow speeds. I do not place blame on my local public library
for trying, but rather I blame once again the powers that be for being so indifferent
In summary, I agree with the two ALA presidentiables about the two most
critical issues public libraries are currently facing. These issues are indeed
alarmingly relevant and important. And while their strategies seem hopeful to me, I
have to remain skeptical of whether it will actually resolve these issues because the
dying relevance of libraries in societies worldwide have long been a problem. I even
remember watching a Twilight Zone episode from the 80’s calling librarians obsolete.
As for the Philippines, I place little to no hope that the government will do anything
about the horrid state of public libraries and education in general; at least in the near
foreseeable future.