ENSURING ACCESS TO DIGITAL LIBRARIES

MICHELLE R. VILLAMOR

Leveraging digitalization is one way to promote the culture of reading among learners and their communities, the country’s officials believe. The National Library of the Philippines’ (NLP) said the NLP’s online public access catalog is already accessible on the NLP’s website and in other school and public libraries. The online public access catalog also allows users to access digital copies of resources, including electronic resources for children, with around one million pages of the materials already digitized. With the world now becoming digital, instant nowledge can be had with just our phones with a quick search. Fusing digitalization, digital habits, and access to libraries is the way to go, officials noted. They are now eyeing to institutionalize access to the NLP catalog as part of a proposed measure. As of November 2023, there are 1,660 public libraries affiliated with the NLP. There are also 56 provincial libraries, three congressional libraries, three locally funded projects, one regional library found in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, 116 libraries in cities, 611 in municipalities, and 870 barangay reading centers. Ensuring access to these libraries will not only promote reading culture, but also improve access to materials, both digital and physical, to make the promotion holistic, they said. Under the proposed National Reading Month Act, the month of November shall be celebrated through the conduct of nationwide reading programs. The bill mandates the Department of Education (DepEd) to act as the lead coordinating body in the formulation of policies and strategies that foster reading not only for entertainment, but also to equip learners with knowledge and skills that will prepare them for policy-making, nation-building, and other means of contributing to economic, social, and cultural development. To increase access to books and other learning materials, it proposes that Public Telecommunications Entities shall provide free public access to DepEd’s learning management systems applications. These applications include web-based applications, online educational platforms, digital libraries, and other online knowledge hubs exclusively hosted by DepEd. Under the proposal, no data charges shall be incurred for the data downloaded from or uploaded to these applications.