Congratulations to the new librarians!
The passing rate for the Librarians' Licensure Examination is 46 percent (382 out of 834), which is practically the same as the passing rate of 47 percent in 2012.
The list of the top scorers are reproduced below. The list of successful examinees may be downloaded from the official website of the Professional Regulation Commission.
The biggest LLE-related news this year, however, is that the next exam will be in April 2014, when the great majority of potential examinees will probably not have graduated yet and, hence, they will not be eligible to take the exam. This means that the 2014 examinees will mostly be repeaters (the Top 10 list will be very interesting), and that future examinees will have to wait a year before taking the exam.
Top 12
BILYSON DOMINGO ALEJO 88.05
KRIEZEL JOY RICACHONDA DARIA 87.40
ROSELLE SAGUIBO MAESTRO 87.05
EMMANUEL RIVERA VINAGRERA 87.00
ALMA SEPULCHRE MASON 86.80
JOHN RONALD RIVERA ALMONIÑA 86.35
CHAD AREN EVANGELISTA DIAZ 86.30
JOHN CHRISTOPHERSON LA TORRE FREDELUCES 86.30
KRISTINE MARIE ABELLO DETOYATO 86.20
MARJORIE BOLO HERMOSORA 85.85
MA VICTORIA CRUZ ACUÑA 85.80
JUAN PAOLO LACANILAO BALAO 85.80
Librarians' Licensure Examination 2013: Results
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Licensed Librarians
November is Book Development Month
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Events
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The Rizal Library is hosting the following events in cooperation with the National Book Development Board, Ateneo de Manila University Press, Filipino ReaderCon, and Kritika Kultura:
Saturday, November 9, 8:00AM-6:00PM
Filipino ReaderCon
What Do Readers Want?
Speakers: Ramon Bautista, Gerry Alanguilan, and more!
Registration fee: P150, inclusive of snacks and certificate
Wednesday, November 13, 8:00AM-5:30PM
4th Philippine International Literary Festival
Bestsellers and the City
Speakers: Peter Swirski, Manix Abrera, and more!
Registration fee: FREE, inclusive of snacks
Monday, November 18, 4:30PM-6:00PM
Kritika Kultura Literary Reading Series
Speakers: Joseph de Luna Saguid and Allan Pastrana
Thursday, November 28, 4:30PM-6:00PM
Harvest
The Ateneo de Manila University Press launches its titles for 2013.
For more information, please click on the links.
Preparing to Become a Leader
Labels:
About Vonjobi,
Leadership
Did you assume a managerial or supervisory position recently? Or maybe you'd like to know what I did to prepare for my job as "Director, Rizal Library"? If so, you may want to read the article I wrote for The Manila Review:
So You Think You Can Be the Boss
by Vernon R. Totanes
"I am pleased to inform you that the search committee tasked to recommend the next Rizal Library director has recommended that you be appointed director beginning April 1, 2013."
This message appeared in my inbox more than a year ago, as I was finishing my dissertation in Canada. By the time you read this, I will have been Director of Ateneo de Manila University's Rizal Library for more than 90 days.
Read More...
IFLA 2013: Filipino Presenters #WLIC2013
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Conferences
There are 75 Filipino librarians at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Singapore. The most remarkable thing, however, is that so many of us are presenting papers and posters. Since 2006, the Philippines has averaged ONE paper and ZERO posters in the annual conference program. This year, it has SEVEN papers and FOUR posters.
What happened? Perhaps the proximity of the venue (and hence, lower costs) had something to do with it. Note, however, that a similar phenomenon did not take place in 2006, when the conference was held in South Korea. I'd like to think that this is a manifestation of the growing desire of Filipino librarians not only to participate in the global discourse between librarians around the world, but also to do research and obtain PhD degrees =)
The following are the paper and poster presenters from the Philippines:
PAPER PRESENTERS
MELANIE ABAD (National Library of the Philippines)
Performance: interactive storytelling
NORA FE ALAJAR (Davao City Public Library)
Increasing demands on public libraries in hard economic times: Innovation and partnership to meet community needs at Davao City Public Library
NELIA R. BALAGAPO (Asian Development Bank)
Creating bridges to prosperity in the Asia and Pacific Region: the ADB Library Experience
IYRA S. BUENROSTRO and JOHANN FREDERICK A. CABBAB (University of the Philippines Diliman)
Reliving the Filipino classical music heritage: preservation and restoration of Philippine art music manuscripts of the University of the Philippines-Diliman College of Music
LILIA F. ECHIVERRI (University of the Philippines Diliman)
Open access to official and authenticated legal information in the Philippines
VERNON R. TOTANES (Ateneo de Manila University)
Textbook case: a colonial history book's influence (or lack thereof) on the miseducation of the Filipino
ROMULO R. UBAY, JR., MARTIN JULIUS V. PEREZ, TERESITA C. MORAN (Far Eastern University) and JOANNA O. SIAPNO (De La Salle University)
Exploring Filipiniana rare books and the state of Filipiniana rare books management
CRISTINA B. VILLANUEVA (University of the Philippines Baguio)
Preserving Cordillera culture and history through the University of the Philippines Baguio Cordillera Studies Collection Library and Archives
POSTER PRESENTERS
ALICIA S. PARAISO (Goethe-Institut Manila)
The Goethe-Institut Library in Southeast Asia: your gateway to Germany; eeting the challenges and opportunities of the future
KARRYL KIM A. SAGUN (Ateneo de Manila University)
What does it meme? Using Internet memes to promote services of the Rizal Library
MARTIN JULIUS V. PEREZ & TERESITA C. MORAN (Far Eastern University)
Far Eastern University Library: the 2012 Philippine Academic/Research Librarians, Inc. (PAARL) Outstanding Academic/Research Library
NORA FE ALAJAR (Davao City Public Library)
Community Partnership for Economic Opportunity
NOTE: Several satellite meetings were held before WLIC2013, and were not officially part of the annual conference program. I hope the Filipino librarians who presented at those meetings will forgive me for not including their names here.
The Future of Book History
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About Vonjobi,
Book History
I am a book historian. The biggest gathering of book historians takes place every year at the annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP), which was held this year at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from 18-21 July 2013. The theme was "Geographies of the Book," which was interpreted both literally (e.g., "circulation... within cities, countries, and across continents") and figuratively (e.g., "imaginative topographies or journeys within fictional works").
In addition to presenting a paper at this year's conference, I was also invited to be one of 12 speakers at the closing plenary session. Each of us was either a PhD student or an early scholar—participants whose voices are rarely heard at plenary sessions. We were given five minutes each, but we were also instructed not to tell anyone about what we were going to do because we were supposed to listen to our colleagues' comments and share their feedback during our reports. (For photos of the closing plenary session, as well as some of the heartening reactions on Twitter to my contribution, see my Facebook post.)
Some speakers spoke extemporaneously, but like a few others, I wrote down my contribution. Here's most of what I said...
First, I will state the obvious, just to get it out of the way. Second, I will state what is not so obvious, just so you know where I'm coming from. And finally, I will state what I am currently doing to promote book history in Asia, as well as what I intend to do in the next few years, which I suspect many of you have already done in the past.
First, despite its global ambitions, it is obvious—based on my own observations, comments whispered in my ear, and tweets posted online, with someone actually using the word "angry" in my presence in relation to yesterday's supposedly global session—that SHARP remains predominantly white, Anglo-American. This reality is reflected in the sites chosen for its annual conferences, as well as the large percentage of papers presented on the book in the West.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not criticizing anyone for a state of affairs that is not unique to SHARP. I'm also not blaming anyone for not addressing questions they never sought to answer. SHARP's focus on the book in the West is not new. In 2001, Amadio Arboleda, who is based in Japan and could not make it here this year, wrote about what he called the "Gutenberg Syndrome," in which the history of the book is viewed in terms of Western principles and practices. I suspect that his sentiments were not entirely new then, and they're certainly not new now. But I suppose it's worth asking, "How much have things changed since then?" I have a suggestion to address this later.
Moving on. What is not so obvious, perhaps, is that while I am clearly representing Asia today, I am not—in many ways—entirely representative of most Asians, the great majority of whom probably have very little time to think about books because they are more concerned about finding food and work. I have been very privileged. It was as a PhD student that I was able to present papers at SHARP's annual conferences in Oxford, Helsinki, and Toronto. I received most of my travel funding from University of Toronto, but the discounted student membership and conference registration rates were very helpful, and for this I am grateful to SHARP.
I am here this year because I received a scholarship from SHARP—and for this I would like to thank the generous donors who contribute to the travel fund, as well as those who administer the fund. The scholarship I received, however, was sufficient to cover only half of my airfare from halfway across the world, so thankfully again, I am gainfully employed and privileged enough that Ateneo de Manila University has given me enough to pay for most of the other costs of going to Philadelphia.
For the final part of this short report I ran out of time to write it out, so I hope you'll pardon me for relying on bullet points to describe what I hope can be done at future conferences:
Because of my own privileged status as the director of a university library with its own budget, I plan to do the following things to promote book history in Asia:
- nice to have this year because of the theme, but can still be done next year: GIS map of book historians, book history prizes, not just place, but also over time
- immediately: talk to someone i don't know, talk to the person sitting next to me
- next conference: badge for "first timer"; session for first-timers; mentors for first-timers
Thank you very much.
- collect public school textbooks for research purposes, and if possible, publishers' archives, in addition to the documents we already collect
- organize a book history panel for a conference in the Philippines
- 3 to 5 years: organize a book history conference for Southeast Asia in the Philippines; participate in planning to bring annual conference to Asia, specifically Japan
- 5 to 8 years: organize annual conference in the Philippines
UPLSAA Young Achievers Awards 2013
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About Vonjobi
From left: Carina Samaniego, Reysa Alenzuela, me, Rina Diaron, Rhea Apolinario, Chito Angeles, Troy Lacsamana, representative of Joseph Yap, and Marvin Vergara. Not in photo: Marian Ramos Eclevia.Thanks to the UP Library Science Alumni Association, I—along with nine other alumni—can now claim to be among the first ever recipients of the "Young Achievers Award." Please note that "young," in this case, is defined as "under 40 years old" =)
The awards were presented at the 63rd General Assembly and Homecoming last 25 May 2013. For more photos, see my Facebook album.
Outstanding Librarian 2013:
Nora Fe Hilojanes Alajar
Labels:
Librarians: Awardees
City Librarian
Davao City Public Library
The Professional Regulation Commission conferred the Outstanding Professional Librarian of the Year Award on Nora Fe Hilojanes Alajar on 20 June 2013. The citation reads:
For her more than 40 years of untiring and relentless efforts in making the Davao City Library a beacon of hope and a benchmark of excellence for public libraries all over the country; for her innovativeness and creativeness initiating projects like Magbasa Ta aimed to bring the Davao City Library activities beyond the confines of its walls to ensure that it serves its residents with; for her dedication and commitment as a public servant working for the inclusion and approval in the City Government's Annual Budget provisions for its library activities such as Book Talks, Reading Programs and Story-Telling events and the improvement of public libraries by turning them into public access hubs for information through the inclusion of her Library in the 'Beyond Access' program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; for her dedication as an educator, she established a Children's Nook and Internet Services and fostered good relations, as an ambassador of the community, with the Embassy of the United States, by making the City Library a recipient of the American Shelf Project, an outreach program of the United States aimed to educate the public about the country, and culture and traditions; and for her selfless dedication and determination in improving the quality of education in her community serving as a brilliant example to librarians and public servants nationwide.
Thanks to Elvie Lapuz for providing the citation. The photo is from Ms. Alajar's Facebook account.
Category: Librarians—Awardees
Leadership and Librarians
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Leadership
Stephen Abram showed the slides above at the Forum on Planning for the Future: Developing Librarians’ Leadership Skills, which was held at the Rizal Library on 15 April 2013.
ICoASL 2013
Labels:
Conferences
In 2006, I wrote "SLA, Toronto, and PhD, or How a Conference Changed My Life." Now I realize that it should have been subtitled "How a Conference and Blogging Changed My Life."
I haven't won any blogging awards, but I think a lot of opportunities I've had since I started this blog in 2005 may be traced directly to the blogging I've done. For instance, I doubt that I could have become an official SLA conference blogger from 2006 to 2009 if I had not had this blog. [The only reason I stopped blogging for the annual conference was that I stopped going, largely so that I could finish my dissertation.]
So I think it's quite appropriate that I just set up a blog for what is essentially an SLA event: ICoASL 2013, or the International Conference of Asian Special Libraries, which is being held in Manila this year, 10-12 April 2013. Take a look. Tell your friends. Register for the conference =)
Libraries Need Librarians
Labels:
Libraries
The video below from "State of the Nation" is the latest feature on Hernando Guanlao, whose "Reading Club 2000" has been the subject of local and foreign news articles since mid-2012.
Whereas previous features have focused almost entirely on Guanlao and his "library," Jessica Soho introduces the video by alluding to Republic Act No. 7743, which provides for the establishment of "public libraries in every congressional district, city and municipality, and reading centers in every barangay throughout the Philippines." In addition, Marisol Abdurahman interviews Martin Julius Perez, a licensed librarian, and solicits his views regarding the significance of Guanlao's library.
There are many things that can be (and have been) written about Guanlao's laudable efforts and the good will he has gained, but I will focus on just one aspect that I have previously written about in "Amending the Law on Public Libraries." In her "Postscript," Soho ends by saying that more Filipinos would probably be reading books "kung wala lang tayong kakulangan sa mga pampublikong aklatan" (if only there were no shortage of public libraries).
There is, in fact, a shortage of public libraries, but an even bigger problem, to which Perez alludes in the video, is that the importance of librarians is taken for granted. While it is true that Guanlao's "Reading Club 2000" is not run by a licensed librarian, Guanlao himself may be considered a librarian. Although there are no rules in his "library," and there is no need to catalog books, he is still the one who receives books, classifies them, and puts them on the shelves. A building full of books and computers with no librarian, as I have said before, is a warehouse, not a library.
I have been critical of previous attempts to amend R.A. 7743, and even of efforts to build libraries for poor communities, because they do not include the need for librarians in their plans. I applaud the vision and generosity of those who want to improve Filipino lives through the establishment of libraries, but well-intended legislation or philanthropy that does not acknowledge the need for licensed librarians or committed volunteers (like Guanlao) will result in what many public school libraries are today: dusty and rarely opened, with new books locked away, because there are no librarians to manage them.
As Guanlao has shown, a passionate volunteer does not really need money to get Filipinos reading. And as licensed librarians I know have demonstrated, it is not necessarily the libraries with the largest budgets that make the biggest impact on readers.
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