Libraries Reflect Governments & Its' Peoples

by Marge Tadeja

Throughout history, libraries represent the evolution of man, if not man's history itself. Athens had its collection of perishable papyrus in libraries by the 4th century BC, while Babylon and Egypt have rooms with clay tablets as early as the 3rd millennium BC. Aristotle's library was considered the greatest of antiquity.

One of pop culture's most famous library at Wayne's Manor, also serves as the secret entrance to the bat cave. (All images & videos courtesy of  their copyright owners).

More than a school and a warehouse for books, the many uses of a library includes as venue for:
1. Museum,
2. training various skills like photography, 
3. geneaology room,
4. section for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning for students,
5. media room where users can see videos and listen to music, use internet,
6. movie theater for families, seniors, author lectures,
7. book discussion groups,
8. kitchen,
9. bookstore,
10. business section,
11. outdoor seating with shade,
11. drive-thru to pick up preordered books and return books,
12. source of help for people... and many more (click to view Nas' video).

Public libraries most especially, reflect the government and its people: its limits can only mean the capacity of those people that manage them in the first place. The Philippines for instance, is like many of the Oriental nations that rely on oral and visual "learning" if it can be considered learning at all, thus, hardly aware of the importance of facts, information, or true learning that can be gained more effectively through books, and other materials from libraries (if they exist at all).

Consequently,  the literacy of a nation reflects its culture, and barbarism. Something we Filipinos cannot brag about at this time.

The kid Bruce Wayne and James Gordon.

p.s.

One friend who goes by the name Judge Dredd of the Club Dredd group (by the way, there's an actual comic hero Judge Dredd! and the former, in my opinion, must have taken the moniker as a fan of visual books himself) lived with the Singsons of Ilocos Sur for a while, complained to me one time

"Fuck! Ilocanos don't read!!!"

And to think that many known Filipino writers are Ilocanos!
Pedro Bucaneg, Leona Florentino and Isabelo de los Reyes, and other writers in English like Carlos Bulosan, Manuel Arguilla, Salvador P. Lopez, Carlos Angeles, F. Sionil Jose, and Gregorio Brillantes, the late president Ferdinand Marcos, and even the infamous Jose Maria Sison.

I would not have given library thoughts and the lack of "reading" habit for Ilocanos a hoot if not this morning, when I heard my friend Lito Javier at mainstream local media (Bombo Radio) rant about a "useless" library project. I did not hear much about the project, but it strikes me just the same how low Philippine (or the Ilocano) society have come.

And if it is of any consolacion,