Rationale

If every child is to be functionally literate, there must be an infrastructure that makes available reading materials to support this agenda. However, the problem besetting the public schools in the country is the prohibitive cost of setting up libraries.

Hence, in 2003, the Department of Education (DepED), through the office of the Undersecretary for Finance and Administration, launched the Library Hub Project as one of its innovative initiatives. This project aims to develop the love for and habit of reading among public school pupils and students through building a warehouse of supplementary reading materials called the Library Hub. The Hub is anchored on the principle that every child can develop desirable reading habits and skills through greater access to reading materials. Ultimately, it will create pervasive reading culture and environment in public schools. Under the Project, the Department is tapping the support and cooperation of both internal and external stakeholders.

The Vision

A functional Library Hub in every schools division is a reservoir of reading materials envisioned to develop among pupils and students the love for and habit of reading.

The Mission

The Library Hub equipped with adequate and varied quality supplementary reading materials for public elementary and secondary schools shall be established in all schools divisions nationwide.

The Goal

In order to attain its vision and mission, at least one Library Hub shall be established in every schools division nationwide by 2010.

Objectives:

The Library Hub Project aims to:

1. Provide greater access to reading materials to all public school pupils and students through Library Hubs
2. Provide quality and appropriate books to public schools nationwide
3. Develop the love for books and habit of reading
4. Make every Filipino child a book lover
5. Support the development of reading and comprehension skills of public school pupils and students

Library Hub Handbook First Edition

This Handbook is written and provided to all school managers and end-users to ensure effective operation of the Hub. The end-users are therefore enjoined to follow the basic policies defined in this Library Hub Handbook to ensure synchronized and continued services provided by the Hub.

This Handbook can be downloaded and printed only. Any infringement or alteration to this Handbook is violation of copyright law. The Department of Education Central Office is the sole copyright owner of this Handbook.

Library Hub Handbook First Edition in PDF Format

JESLI A. LAPUS
Secretary

It has been said that the Philippines is not a reading nation. This has been born out of casual observation as well as scientific research and, needless to say this could also be attributed to the lack of public school and community libraries. Although every public elementary and secondary school in this country has a library or a semblance of it, its materials and staff are far from sufficient to make it functional. Very often, old infrastructure and condemned buildings houses the obsolete books and magazines donated by local and foreign donors in filled-up library shelves.

Recognizing this grave problem, the Department of Education hit the nail on the head, so to speak, with the launching of its Library Hub Project. This Project aims to develop love and habit of reading among pupils and students in public schools through setting up warehouse libraries provided with DepED-approved Supplementary Reading Materials. Hopefully, this project will also encourage its clientelle to become book lovers.

Fortunately, the mushrooming of Library Hubs across the country as warehouse for books has been generating support from both the local government units and the private sector as a vital component of education and literacy programs in the community.

TEODOSIO C. SANGIL, JR.
Undersecretary

Library Hub is a novel and unique structure in the Philippine educational system. Novel because this is the first time that the Department has launched an innovative project of this nature, whereby an infrastructure and new reading materials made possible through collaborative partnerships with stakeholders are provided to public school students for free.

To develop a reading habit, we need reading books. The challenge of providing public school libraries with reading books becomes a question of logistics vis-a-vis the scarcity of resources. To provide reading books to over 37,000 public elementary schools and 4,000 secondary schools becomes prohibitive in terms of cost. As an operating strategy to get around this constraint, the DepED embarked on a program to build Library Hubs in all school divisions. While it is costly to build tens of thousands of school libraries with a small number of books, each school within a Library Hub area can be access to tens of thousands of books in a school year even if it does not have a school library.

To date, DepEd has set up about 70 Library Hubs in a very short span of time throughout the country. These Hubs will be servicing thousands of public schools. The plan is to create as many Library Hubs in all divisions, with the larger school divisions getting as many as four to six Hubs to service the hundreds of schools within their jurisdiction. This is an ambitious target but one with multiplier effects.