#upkasaysayan

First image: Shelf 18 to 19 Second image: Shelf 20 to 21

I will miss them so much :((

Welp. The real quest actually lies as we finish up the entire collection and arranging them. However, a while ago, we were tested. 2 History professors went inside the Silid Balangay and started to look for 15 books about History for their research. I was shocked. I didn’t that they would be finding books this early, knowing that the library is currently being cataloged and finished by none other than, yours truly  (lol I wasn’t even prepared that 2 of them at once, would ask for books). But I kept my calm. I know I can handle this. Just like any regular librarian, one has to handle the situation calmly and without arrogance and apathy. I searched the database wherein all the books I encoded were located. I have successfully found the 10 books for Sir Guiang and 5 books for Sir Santillan. Whew. I can only imagine the joy that I had when I found the books that they were looking for. Sir Neil even told me that “I was not wrong asking for a SLIS student. You never disappoint.” I was like woah. Did he really say that? Am I dreaming? After Sir Neil went out, Moselle approached me and congratulated me. I told her that I am not going to be congratulating or accepting any congratulations for myself, not until I finish arranging the collections and finishing the teaching session for Sir Vic Villan and at the same time, teach the Silid Balangay people especially Vin and Ma’am Bianca on basic cataloging processes and preservation practices that they can employ. Moselle admitted to me at first that she never knew what I was doing during my first weeks in the Silid Balangay. She thought I was just there to goof of. She never saw my predecessor, Jude Abang because she became the Graduate Assistant last February 23, 2018 (10 days after Jude finished the 700 books for the Silid  Balangay). She was curious on how I do things so I taught her about LIS and some of its quirks and nuances. She, a political science major from UP Manila was amazed at how LIS was conceived and currently lashes through the fields of knowledge. I told her explicitly that being an LIS major entails a lot of courage and passion. You need to have the courage to face the world that you are an LIS student, that you will face all types of discrimination against someone who constantly belittles the program like he/she is any better than it. You need to have the passion as well. LIS is not an easy program. Like what I stated in the past journals, LIS is more than just sitting for 8 hours in the Library. We are beyond the library. Archives, Museums and Knowledge Centers are also places where you can find LIS people working. We are just rebranding ourselves. Perhaps, the reason why she didn’t know anything about LIS is because UP Manila has no LIS program. I also went to their library and god, I believe that the CAL Library is WAAAAYYY better than their library. If you did not put an effort in branding your library, chances are, people will not recognize you. The same thing happened to Moselle. I talked to her about this and she agreed. I just hope that UP Manila will change its branding of the library services it caters to the students and staff. Nevertheless, I am so happy I was able to change someone else’s perception of the LIS program.

Shelves 16-17 with their call numbers!!!!! Shelves 18-19 to have their call numbers pasted with them!!!

Thank you, Silid Balangay! Thank you for housing me for 10 weeks :)

We’re now down to the penultimate week of my stay here in the UP Department of History. The shelves are now nearing its completion and I couldn’t help but be happy about my progress. Wait--did I even mention the SA who was helping me all this time? It was Marvin Tenecio who prints the Call Numbers and paste them in the books. Marvin is a Philippine Studies major from the College of Arts and Letters and he is also the correspondent of the Philippine Collegian for the #votewatchUPD coverage in SLIS, SURP, SOLAIR and NCPAG. He told me that he has been meaning to ask me about some of the misconceptions about our degree program. He started off when he asked me about our existence in the University. I told him that the UP SLIS traces its roots back in 1921 when the first Library Science subjects were taught under the College of Liberal Arts of the University of the Philippines then in the City of Manila. Some of the prominent names who taught LS subjects are Mary Polk, James Alexander Robertson and Gabriel A. Bernardo. These three have immeasurable contribution to the development of the Library profession in the country. In 1961, exactly 40 years after the first LS subjects were offered, the Institute of Library Science (ILS) was founded. As years passed by, technology has evolved and the need for the establishment of a Library and Information Science institute has grown thus the first LIS Institute in the country, the Institute of Library and Information Science (ILIS) was founded that was renamed as the School of Library and Information Studies that we know today. He was shocked to know that the UP SLIS is way older than most colleges and schools in Diliman. He thought that we’re new. I replied to him that because the administration of UP Diliman kept on overlooking us for so long. Some of the people believe that our profession is a dying profession, some believe that it would be obselete in the coming years. I daresay no. We will not die. We will simply rebrand ourselves to become something new. Like Metamorphosis in the life cycle of a butterfly. I told him that being a LIS major is a difficult task--the ever changing platform of information is fluid and dynamic. The need for more authoritative sources is imminent and our battle against fake news is a must-see scenario. I told him, that what I’m doing right now--Cataloging is one way of fighting fake news. With resources arranged properly, access and dissemination of information are enabled. You give the people more chances of getting to the right information instead of letting them sift through the unprocessed and uncataloged resources. I told him that enabling an information literate society is the goal of LIS-- all of its fields, General Librarianship, Medical Librarianship, Law Librarianship, Information Systems and Archives and Records Management. Lastly, I told him that whatever happen in this world, we will not become obsolete. We shall never be branded as dead. Cataloging along with its peers in the General Librarianship field and together with the rest of the LIS fields will continue the crusade against misinformation and disinformation.