On Pushing the Cause of Public Libraries

It has been close to three weeks since I last posted a blog. I had been immersed writing an advocacy paper on reader development and about mainstreaming public libraries. I hope it is good enough excuse.

The past days, I interviewed two colleagues working for public libraries here in South Cotabato relative to the paper I am writing. Both expressed rather depressing realities of the diminishing motivation to push the cause of public libraries because efforts seem to go nowhere and the usual constraints due to lack of funds that paralyze their creativity. I perfectly understand where thay come from. It must be very difficult where they are -- boxed in by seemingly hopeless circumstances. It is a bit easier where I am, looking at them from afar, trying to articulate their concerns and trying to lift my fingers to be able to help them in any way I could. Then I realize that there is a difference between being there where these public librarians are and looking, empathizing and articulating their realities from the outside. There definitely is more to the advocacy on mainstreaming public libraries than just writing and delivering papers at conferences.

Then just now, I have spoken with a former colleague from the Notre Dame of Marbel University Mr. Arvin M. Tejada who is much into the same advocacy as I am. Talking to him lifted my spirits, kept me motivated and all the more challenged to push this common advocacy. Never mind if to others these may seem as time-consuming, old-fashioned, or even hopeless pursuits. It's admirable how librarians like Arvin can choose not to be constrained nor limited by circumstances, no matter how hard it is to navigate just to get the cause of public libraries to the mainstream. It is always a choice.

I wish there were more fellow Mindanao librarians with a heart and passion for community development work like those I have spoken and interviewed, so we can pull our resources and capacities together in order to push this advocacy far enough to be felt and understood.