What I Forgot To Say In The Philippine Children's Literature Forum

And so, it came to pass. The forum, for me, in most parts had been fun. Thank you very much to Gwenn Galvez of Anvil for organizing the event. To Roselily Medrano, librarian of the College of Fine Arts, professors and teachers of the College of Education, a job well done for staging this event with Anvil. To Prof. Chito Angeles and the dynamic librarians of the UP Diliman Main Library, thank you for supporting the PBBY and the book, Bumasa at Lumaya volume 2. I am happy to be with my kin in the profession discussing and being involved in the growth and development of children's literature.

Literacy advocates all!

However, there are some things I forgot to say during the open forum and that blogging about it will make sleep come easy. The question about curriculum and how reading can further enrich it are two of the topics I wish to expand on this blog post.

First of all, I use the curriculum as one of my guides in developing the library's collection particularly the non-fiction books. What the library has, in its holdings and resources, must adhere and answer to the school's curricular offering. Budgeting would follow since prices of books differ from one subject matter to another. This is a measured and safe technique in collection building. Using the curriculum as a selection guide in the acquisition of library resources would lead to an alignment of pedagogy and practice. What happens in the classroom can be extended in the library in the form of a research activity, reading assignments and writing tasks that pertain to requirements in the subject areas.

I also use the curriculum as my selection and acquisition tool to widen the breadth of the collection as well as to deepen it. Not only am I acquiring books and resources that meet the competencies, skills and concepts in the curriculum, I also look at areas in the curriculum that inform me to acquire materials that will enrich and amplify teaching and learning experiences. The exciting and challenging part is, I do not do this alone. I work with academic coordinators and teachers in developing the library's collection.

Other than this, there are the circulation reports, feedback from students, parents and our own evaluation that matter in collection development. Once the library has stocked enough learning resources, the librarian can now recommend useful resources. What happens when there are few resources? Librarians reach out to linkages and network through inter-library loan, open source and library consortiums.

Many academic libraries follow this model. Schools, especially high school libraries, recommend their students visit colleges and public libraries for research and reading tasks. I think, it is about time to have consortiums set up at the level of school libraries. In the K-12 age, resource sharing may be a solution to the scarcity and shortage of learning resources.