Book Development Month 2009

"Galing Pinoy, Basahin!" is the theme of this year's celebration of Philippine Book Development Month (PBDM). The Tagalog word "galing" may be pronounced two ways and has two different meanings. The first may be translated as "talent," while the second, "from." Thus, the theme could be "Read Pinoy Talent!" or "Read [Books] From Pinoys!" There's more information about the different activities being held, including the awarding ceremonies for the National Book Awards, on the website of the National Book Development Board (NBDB).

But actually, PBDM is not the only thing happening in November. Long before PBDM was moved from June to November to coincide with National Book Week (NBW), it was already Library and Information Services Month (LISM). Unlike PBDM, however, there doesn't really seem to be any central location where information about NBW or LISM can be found easily. The National Library's website has been down more than it's been up since I first thought of becoming a librarian in 2002, and while the fact that it has a wiki is encouraging, it doesn't really provide much useful information beyond address, contact numbers and library hours. Is it really that hard to get a website to work or update a wiki? The Quezon City Public Library, in contrast, provides a list of events for all its branches, branch locations with maps, and even regular newsletters.

Other events taking place in November are the following:

National Conference, Philippine Association of Academic and Research Librarians - Pasig City, 11-13 November 2009

National Conference, Reading Association of the Philippines - Dagupan City, Pangasinan, 12-14 November 2009 [postponed]

National Congress, Philippine Librarians Association - Pasay City, 25-27 November 2009

It seems rather odd that while the sponsor of the first event actually has its own website and wiki, information about the event is circulating only via email, and so questions get asked and requests are made over and over again. The sponsors of the other two events, meanwhile, do not even seem to have their own websites, and details are just disseminated through the kindness of interested parties.

This post was really just supposed to be an announcement about important events taking place in November, but I just couldn't help letting out some of the disappointment I'm feeling about the way these events are being publicized. NBDB has gotten much savvier at promoting its activities since I first blogged about its website, but all the others seem to be pretty much where they were before. Finally, there's what I wrote last year in Book Development Month 2008: "It is rather unfortunate, however, that there does not seem to be much evidence of synergy or cooperation between the different groups behind PBDM and NBW/LISM." Not much, it seems, has changed since then.