Books and Coffee at the Quezon City Public Library

During my term break from the Academy, I managed to conduct two workshops for librarians. One was for the librarians of the Quezon City Public Library (QCPL) and the other was at Southville International Schools and Colleges' Effective Librarianship at Work.

For this post, I am going to concentrate on telling you about the workshop I did with the QCPL librarians.

I conducted a basic bibliotherapy workshop with them since they were keen on helping out of school youths in Quezon City. The QCPL main library is supervising 19 Barangay Reading Centers and each has a staff assigned to run programs and services for children, teens, adults and senior citizens. What I did was to give them a 101 Bibliotherapy session. It was a touching moment. The morning was filled with sharing of insights and ideas on how they can put together a homegrown Bibliotherapy program. The QCPL librarians were all engaged.

I was further impressed when they served us coffee from the Library Cafe. Yes, the QCPL has a cafe inside the library. The Iriga Public Library has a coffee shop too. I visited Iriga a long, long time ago and I am mot sure if the coffee shop is still there. Nonetheless, this coffee shop is a sign that more and more, librarians and libraries are beginning to embed itself in the community.

QCPL also had a reading superhero in the persona of Heneral Basa. Their librarians conduct outreach programs in Quezon City and in different provinces. They donate books and help communities establish reading centers. If you have old books, I recommend you donate it to the QCPL! They will surely know what to do with them.

Before I left for home, the QCPL librarians gave me and Darrel Marco (he was with me that day!) a glimpse of their future! They showed us their new building being built with in the compound of the Quezon City Hall complex.

Congratulations on this good news, QCPL! May your example bring inspiration to many!