A Start Up Bibliotherapy Collection

I visited the Adamson University Library last month and, lo and behold, discovered their Bibliotherapy Collection. This shelf has books on self help, Psychology and Philosophy. There are fiction books as well that carry themes of personal success and struggles.

Reading the poster attached on the shelf, I suppose the collection is a spring board for readers to explore more books. This way, readers are invited to engage in ideas and information that will lead them to a deeper understanding of life and, as the poster puts it, to cultivate a culture of research.

I pulled out one book. Coelho's By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept is a favorite. The piece of paper that's inserted in the book happens to be a feedback and response form. The reader fills this out and submits this to the librarian. For doing this, the reader has a chance on winning a prize.

 Browsing the book I came upon the page where a line goes "To fall in love is risky..." Written beside it, in blue ink is the word: SOBRA. In English, the word means, too much.

FUSION '13: Negotiation Power Skills & Library Services Management

Philippine librarianship will never run out of conferences and seminars! It seems that there is a great need to learn continuously in the discipline. Such is the challenge of the 21st century. Knowledge is not stable and technology has proven that creating and communicating information is a dynamic endeavor.

Adamson University is staging a national conference dubbed as FUSION '13: Negotiation Power Skills and Library Services Management. The conference has an impressive list of Filipino Librarians, new names and seasoned ones, as speakers.

If you visit the conference's blog, you will find a link that will lead you to its objectives. What's interesting to note is the suggestion of possible output for each conference objective. This is helpful as many librarians merely echo and share conference experiences back to their colleagues. Nothing wrong with that, but, concrete end product of one's attendance to conferences is an indicator of learning.

I suppose this covers a bigger pie known as library staff supervision. Library coordinators need to chart a path for his or her staff to grow in the profession as well as, follow through on work accomplishments. How well trained are library coordinators in people management?

Tour of Outstanding Libraries: Benchmarking Strategy

Eric Ramos of Adamson University has organized a library tour. Scheduled on August 13, 2012, the librarians who will join the trip have a way of getting in touch with colleagues in the profession. The trip is also a good strategy for benchmarking library services and programs.

Developing Digital Collections

I was fortunate to be at the Adamson University library last week for their seminar on Library Services via International Collaboration. I wondered what the seminar was all about when I got a call from the Library Director herself inviting me to sit in the seminar. The topic suggested many areas of interest for the practicing librarian. The phrase, international collaboration, would mean globalization among other things "international".

Upon getting the program, I learned that the seminar was simply about collection development but, with a focus on the application of IT especially web technologies and platforms for a digital collection.

With James Galbraith, M Ryann Hess and
Madame Dhel Calimag, Director of Adamson Univeristy
Library (Manila)

It was a full house! What with two scholars from DePaul Univeristy, Chicago as resource speakers, Pinoy librarians were all eager to listen and see models of practice and application of digital collection building from the presentations of James Galbraith, Associate Director for Collections and Scholarly Resources of DePaul University and M Ryan Hess, Web Services Coordinator of the same university.

The library staff at Adamson University did not expect that they will get a very good attendance. Besides, the event was simply a venue for professional sharing and networking. It was not a money-making activity. The librarians at Adamson University are bent at collaborating and sharing resources with DePaul University being

Needless to say, the seminar was a timely one. Everyone is up and about on e-books and e-reading. Setting up a digital collection is not an option but a choice that has to be made. I sensed an unspoken anxiety and wariness among the participants though and suffice it to say that this unease comes from the bigger task of actually going digital. It sets off a host of implications which, for the local librarian, these would mean a lot of work!

One implication is the upgrade of a librarian's competency and training. Second, going digital would also mean tougher library management skills for the library manager who is in the middle: on top is his/her responsibility towards the administration and below is his/her authority and capability to lead the library staff. Developing digital collection would also entail a robust IT manpower and support systems, sustainable budget for its growth and development, on-going training of library staff, users of the library and continued networking skills for collaborative projects.

The long and short of it, developing digital collections require the accommodation of changing paradigms and the assimilation of new business models to run and operate modern library systems.