Filipino Librarian: Roderick Ramos

And so we begin this year's Filipino Librarian series post with Mr. Roderick Ramos, as Mr. January.

Eric, as he is fondly known, received PAARL's professional service award last January 26, 2013 during its 40th year anniversay. He is no stranger to awards. In fact, as librarian of St. Louis College, Valenzuela many years ago, he was recipient of an award for service and honor performance as President of the Association of Schools of Valenzuela for Culture and the Arts. This recognition was given to Eric by the local government unit of Valenzuela for spearheading activities that develop and promote the city museum. This goes to show that Eric's leadership skills stretch out from the library to the community it serves.

 His experience working in varied libraries, from school libraries to academic libraries, fortified his people skills and professional competence for what seemed to be a thin academic preparation in library school. He started out as a teacher librarian in the Manila public school system; moved to St. Louis Valenzuela as college librarian; went farther north in Sagada and served as librarian in St. Mary School and cataloger in the William Henry Scott Library; back to the lowlands he worked in PNU, his alma mater, and then settled in DLSU, Taft for a couple of years. There he finished his graduate studies, a MA in Education. After his stint as readers services librarian in DLSU Taft, he got a job at Adamson University doing library promotions, marketing content and services. Right now, Eric's professional home is the University of Perpetual Help Library where he and his family live very near the learning community.

A rolling stone gathers no moss, so they say, but Eric believes otherwise. Subscribing to the idea that change is constant, the library hopping is a non-issue. The real adventurer, he organizes trips to Sagada, Mt. Pinatubo crater, Babuyan Island to mention a few, for a good cause. On top of this, he managed to participate in professional organizations since his return to PNU. He was elected President of PNULISSAA in 2008 and in 2010, he was voted Vice President of PAARL.

In between working, adventuring and running organizations, he writes a monograph, Produktivong Librarianship to inspire, influence, promote the profession and encourage librarians to be productive. He is one marketing marvel and this talent he uses to help up lift colleagues in the profession. 2012 was his 20th year in the profession. This new year, Eric begins another decade by keeping a dynamic and proactive outlook, taking into account prospects in the training scene and professional development of librarians and continuing to organizes trips for librarians and pilgrims. His unsolicited advice to the younger, hipper librarians: integrate and fit the library to the lifestyle of your library patrons!

There's only one Eric Ramos, Filipino Librarian!

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.