Easier access to books with Library Hub project

In line with its thrust to make every Filipino child a reader by grade three, the Department of Education has established library hubs nationwide.

The Library Hub Project aims to establish library hubs in every public school division across the country. Its target is to set up at least 300 hubs in 184 school divisions in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao by the year 2010.

Since the department is unable to provide and upgrade all libraries in almost 43,000 schools in the country, a warehouse-type wholesale oriented hub was conceptualized.

Library Hubs serve as wholesale libraries, which exclusively services elementary and secondary schools within their direct area of service. The hub also provides access to a multitude of storybooks, anywhere from 25,000 to 400,000 books, bundled by subject area, grade or year level for easy access. These bundles can be lent to schools for 25 calendar day periods, after which the schools must return the bundles for them to be eligible to borrow another bundle.

Under the project, thousands of story books and supplementary reading materials will be made available to schools through these hubs, and teacher librarians who will take charge of the hubs will be trained. To date, a total of 21,000 public school teacher-librarians and school administrators have been trained since the project was launched in 2003.

The project, according to Education Secretary Jesli Lapus, would help ease the library backlog in public schools nationwide. For this school year, DepEd targets to build at least 35 hubs across the country.

"Reading improves the academic performance of school children and eventually it will lead to students' success in life," he said. - Jasmin R. Uy