Bibliotherapy Service in the School Library

One delightful discovery I had in my recent PAASCU visit to San Beda College's Integrated Basic Education Library was the Bibliotherapy Services that the school librarians conduct for their high school students. The service is part of the formation program of the Office of the Student Services that include the Guidance department and the Formation and Spirituality team. The Bibliotherapy Service was started out by Mr. Richard Sarmiento who attended my workshop on BiblioCare in Sagada in 2014. The workshop was part of the summer conference which the MUNPARLAS Librarians Association organised for its member libraries and other interested librarians from all over the Philippines.

Though Mr. Sarmiento has left San Beda, the school librarians in the high school level continue on with the service, coordinating with the formation and guidance departments. While the basic foundations of the Bibliotherapy process is kept in practice by the librarians, there are new additions to the procedure that make it a "Bedan" program. This only goes to show that innovation and creativity are actualised through collaborative work and community effort.

Having witnessed the Bibliotherapy Service as a viable strategy to help young adult learners reflect on their actions and realise their potentials for growth, I surge to revisit my existing works and writings on Bibliotherapy surfaced. Here are links of my Bibliotherapy materials and resources I have developed over the years.

Interviews on Bibliotherapy

Interview by Librarian Kevin  - Bibliotherapy 101 for school librarians

Special Education and Bibliotherapy Part 1 (2016)
Special Education and Bibliotherapy Part 2 (2016)
Special Education and Bibliotherapy Part 3 (2016)

Bibliotherapy on LibRadio and a Philippine Based Research on Bibliotherapy (2014)

For the record, it was the Philippine Association of Academic and Research Librarians (PAARL) who first dared and put their stake to have me as speaker and workshop facilitator on Bibliotherapy. This was back in 2010. The presentation slides I used can be accessed via my SlideShare Page. A year after, PAARL invited me again to broaden the coverage of Bibliotherapy as a readers' services program. The half-day workshop became a modular training on library prescription shop and bibliotherapy services for a whole day's session.

From then on until today, I had been conducting workshops on Bibliotherapy.

I facilitated a two workshops on  Bibliotherapy at the Gurong Kaakbay Conference (2011 and 2012), the PASLI Summer Conference in Baguio City (2011), the IASL Annual Conference in Bali, Indonesia (2013), BiblioCare Workshop in Sagada (2014), and the Quezon City Public Library Bibliotherapy Workshop (2016)

Materials and resources on Bibliotherapy in the school setting

PowerPoint Slides on Bibliotherapy (Stories and Storytelling for Growth and Healing)
Worksheets on Bibliotherapy (Handouts and worksheets)
Adamson University Library's Start Up Bibliotherapy Collection (Collection Development)
The Reading Passport as Bibliotherapy Tool (Reading into Writing)
Bibliotherapy for Out of School Youths (Young Adult Library Services)

There are plenty more write ups in the blog's archive. I have only selected the more important ones. If anything, the experience at San Beda College in Alabang has inspired me to reactivate this service beyond collection development in my library. Who knows, a new academic paper or even a program may come out from this rumination and reflection.