In "Education is simply off the country’s radar screen" (Part I, Part II; Philippine Daily Inquirer, 7 August 2005), Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, SJ, president of the Ateneo de Manila University says:
What we have found in studies as early as the 1990s is that, among schools with more or less the same circumstances and the same budget, success has depended on (1) the leadership of the principal and (2) the support of the parents and the community... Actually, not every problem is about lack of money.Replace "schools" with "school libraries," and "principal" with "librarian," and I may as well have been quoting Nebres in the following posts:
The Principal Factor
In spite of constraints, some public school libraries have developed and flourished... We hardly ever read about the difficulties that had to be overcome. What happened between the "before" and the "after"? How exactly can others replicate their success? Readers may, in fact, get the impression that all you need to have a good library is a donor who has money. But is it really just about money? More...Librarians as Leaders
"We don’t have money" is what many librarians in the Philippines will say to excuse the state of our libraries. But I do not believe that money is the only problem. Many Filipino librarians do not have the leadership and communication skills necessary to persuade their superiors and possible donors—even subordinates—that they can effectively implement the projects for which they ask assistance. More...And then, of course, there's the school director who is willing to allocate money for the library—but won't. Why? Because the librarian can't explain how the interventions s/he wants to implement will help the school achieve its goals. Now, that's a useless librarian.
