12.13.07 kulturnatib

Goodbye, book card

Ever since I learned about and started using libraries -- excluding the very modest single cabinet library at our ancestral home -- I always associated libraries with library book cards.

This was the necessary currency that made library transactions possible, except when one just read or researched books or magazines in the library premises, in which case the other currency would be some kind of identification card that allowed access into the library, its materials and facilities.

But with the internet libraries have changed as has most everything else in most places where the internet is becoming central for most of life's transactions.

This, for the most part, has just been something I've read somewhere. In Cebu, as with most of the Philippines, the internet is still gaining ground, the use of which is mostly still confined to personal transactions, personal communications and the like.

I do not know whether local school libraries have now adopted internet technologies for archiving, tracking or accessing books or other materials or if they have remained as they have ever since the library card, the index card, and the identification card were developed as the tripod that supported the entire library's functioning.

I doubt it. I doubt even more that public libraries – where? -- have been brought up to speed. I bet they would still be up on the speed they have always moved at: immobile.

As an aside, I'm reminded of this quaint little immobile library I stumbled into one afternoon (a Sunday, I guess) in Bantayan town. It must have had some sign announcing itself or I wouldn't have recognized it because, aside from that, it was just like any ordinary house in the town center. And then, this I'm sure of, it was closed.

But I got somebody to open it. I was ushered into a jumble of half empty, dust encrusted shelves where books lay every which way. Then I found one book soon after I started looking around. It was as if I had stumbled onto a treasure trove. In some way it was.

I found a surprise; a book, the only novel by the American poet E.E. Cummings. “The Enormous Room,” is a book about Cummings experience in a French prison, suspected as a spy while serving with an ambulance crew there during the First World War.

This novel isn't as known as his poetry, in fact, not many literate people would know about this book. But, it struck me as, well, a novelty.

I asked the person who accompanied me if I could borrow it. Sure, he said, you can have it. There.

One of the things I immediately took care of soon after arriving here in Gatineau, across Ottawa, Canada, was to secure access to the city library or the bibliotheque municipale at the maison du citoyen, literally, house of the citizens or city hall.

I was asked for a few documents establishing my identity, was asked to sit in front of an web camera and voila -- as they would say here -- I had my library access card.

In a few days, I was already borrowing a book. This was when I learned that here traditional book cards were now a thing of the past.

In its place are bar codes on the books, bar code scanners and a printer that printed out a sheet containing information about the book, borrowing conditions and the date the book is due to be returned and the phone number of the library that one can call should one decide to extend or renew the lease on the book.

Or, one doesn't have to bother calling. Through the internet, one can do the same thing and, this way, one is also informed whether a book is available or whether lease on it can be renewed or any other information one might need about the library and its materials.

This library is the main one in the city and there are, at least, eight more smaller facilities scattered throughout what were once five cities now amalgamated into a single entity. The conditions for use would be the same as would be its accessibility.

This is one goodbye that, for me, will only be sweet and no sorrow.