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Reaction Paper - Public Libraries - Tanay

The document discusses the funding challenges faced by public libraries in the Philippines. It notes that public libraries are established and funded by the government to meet the information needs of the community, but many in the Philippines struggle due to a lack of funding. The main issues are a lack of adequate funding allocation from the government. This is due to factors such as corruption diverting funds, low prioritization of libraries by the government and community, and a lack of awareness about the benefits of public libraries. These funding shortfalls limit services, technology, training, staffing and overall sustainability of public libraries in the country.

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Kim Francis Tanay
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59 views2 pages

Reaction Paper - Public Libraries - Tanay

The document discusses the funding challenges faced by public libraries in the Philippines. It notes that public libraries are established and funded by the government to meet the information needs of the community, but many in the Philippines struggle due to a lack of funding. The main issues are a lack of adequate funding allocation from the government. This is due to factors such as corruption diverting funds, low prioritization of libraries by the government and community, and a lack of awareness about the benefits of public libraries. These funding shortfalls limit services, technology, training, staffing and overall sustainability of public libraries in the country.

Uploaded by

Kim Francis Tanay
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Francis Kim R.

Tanay LIS-15

PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND ITS FUNDING

When you talk about libraries for the general masses, the first think that would come up

to your mind are public libraries. Indeed, public libraries are open for everyone, serving different

age groups, races, beliefs, etc. Public libraries are social institutions commonly established by

the government and financed by the public fund. Their main objective is to supply the need of

information of the community and to suffice clients need. This objective is also carried by the

public libraries here in the Philippines. But does the public library in our country really live to

their own objective? In this paper I will briefly tackle the current situation of public library in the

Philippines. I will also discuss the problem in funding, for this is one of the challenges of many

public libraries.

In 1982, there was an article made by Radha Rasmussen that tackles issues in public

libraries in our country. In this article, he included the idea of Conrado David stating that the

public library in the Philippines has three basic problems, first is lack of local funds, second is

lack of qualified and competent staff, and lastly lack of appropriate legislation. Decades had

passed; these problems are still present in today’s generation. What happened to the public

libraries? For me, the main issue here is the lack of government funding and support. Going back

to the definition of public library, these institutions are established by the law and funded by the

people through their taxes. Thus, the government is mainly responsible for the distribution of

funds to public libraries in our country. Without proper funding, services will be limited,

equipment and technologies will eventually become outdated, there will be lack of training,

lower wages, and lack of staffs that are competent. In short, the issue of funding is very crucial to

public libraries since other important areas are connected to the proper funding of the
Francis Kim R. Tanay LIS-15

government. So, what happened to the funds that should be allocated to the public libraries? Why

does our public libraries are experiencing lack of funding? There 3 points that can be the cause

of this problem. First is the current government culture of our country. In my opinion, there are

still government officials who intervenes and steal from the funding, not only in the issue for

public libraries but also other government projects. Second, is the perception of our community

as well as our government to libraries, in which it is lesser that was focused on. Looking back on

the reports for the last 20 years, majority of the projects of the government were focused on

infrastructures, tourism, or health. Only few projects are directly pointed to libraries. The third

and last point is the lack of awareness of the community to public libraries. Not everyone know

the benefits in using public libraries, because of this the lack of clients will result to further state

of anonymity to the community.

Reference:

http://web.nlp.gov.ph/nlp/sites/default/files/14Jun2019/Status%20of%20Philippine%20Public

%20Libraries%20and%20librarianship.pdf

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00049670.1982.10755452#:~:text=As

%20Conrado%20David%20has%20stated,competent%20staff%20and%20appropriate

%20legislation.&text=Philippine%20public%20libraries%2C%20un%2D%20like,list%20of

%20local%20government%20priorities.

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