Flipping pages to reality

My academic love story began with a page flip and book’s dog ear fold during my first grade. I have always loved studying. Tomorrow’s lesson is my yesterday’s quiz. This routine continued until my collegiate years.

My secret to surviving school was reading.

Any reading material fascinates me. I can choose from books to magazines to newspapers to all the articles readable in my known language. In fact, Amy Tan’s “The Hundred Secret Senses” is under my pillow. Dan Brown’s works are on the bedside drawer. 

Because of the reader in me, the library has become my nook. Every day during the first hour, I enter the familiar doors of the University of the Philippines (UP) Cebu library. The library staff greet me like they did yesterday and the day before that. I clutch my pink laptop and a couple of books borrowed the day before then I head to the periodical section.

During one of my library sessions, I noticed a pile of tattered books carried by a freshman. It must have been published during the war years, page edges are yellow, the book cover missing. My head shook in dismay. This library has been left behind by the modernity of learning.

True enough, UP Cebu’s library seemed ill remembered in the past decade or so. Although access to online journals around the country is now possible, library attendants say that students don’t take advantage of this. New books come once in a while but not as readers need them.

I wonder: Will UP Cebu’s library ever become one of the best? Most universities which I have visited this month have up to date books. Not to mention computers for Internet research. The University of San Carlos library recently became the biggest library in the country. If we cross the Tañon Strait, the Silliman University library is one of the best. What about the library of the national university in Cebu? Ours is barely a sixteenth or less of theirs.

I pity the generations to come. They are bound to use books published in the 1980s or earlier which don’t even have the data they need. Sure, digital books will take over soon but the budget for this seems to come in last. There is only one working computer inside the room and it can only be used to access the online catalogue.

There is much to spend on in a university that houses a top caliber student body. Yet, it’s illogical not to spend on books. Compared to online journals and E-books, printed books can easily be retrieved unlike soft copies that can be lost to system failure.

Despite this lapse, I’m thankful for this nook which I regard as my refuge and my love. It has been my fortress when stress attacks me. I could sit by a desk beside the huge windows with today’s paper on hand while overlooking the slums of Barangay Kamputhaw.

 The library attendants are my friends. There’s Ate Sol, the tall woman who loves to answer crossword puzzles on the newspaper. There’s Sir Jess, the only man among the all female powerhouse. And of course, there’s Miss Ofelia, the bubbly and never hesitant attendant.

There is much to tell about UP Cebu’s library, and there is more to come if the next generation can benefit from it. If only this would be taken notice of.

It is a cry full of “I hope” and “what if” especially now that it has been temporarily closed because of its unsafe structure.

I remembered a couple of freshmen who once caught my eye. They squatted behind a shelf, laughing so hard and their big books were wide open on their laps.

I’m glad. This love story isn’t only mine to keep. I flip the page from the book on my desk and wander from books to the windows with this view of social reality.

**Published in The Freeman newspaper on July 17, 2012