A lawmaker is pushing for the passage of measure seeking to hike the budget of the National Library to P500 million to upgrade the country’s public libraries by incorporating the latest electronic technologies in filing and cataloguing reading materials and research resources.
In House Bill (HB) 8087, Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund F. Villafuerte Jr. said his proposal seeks to strengthen the provisions of Republic Act (RA) 7743, which provides for the establishment of provincial, city and municipal libraries and barangay reading centers throughout the Philippines.
To provide funds for this massive upgrade, Villafuerte said his bill seeks to increase the budget of the National Library to P500 million a year until all cities and municipalities are provided with full electronic library facilities.
“HB 8087’s goal is for all cities and municipalities in the country to have electronically operated library systems in place by 2022,” he said in a news statement issued on Wednesday.
According to the lawmaker, Congress needs to amend RA 7743 to keep local government units and their respective constituents at pace with rapid changes in today’s digital era and to improve the country’s education system.
The bill, likewise, seeks to improve the current program of establishing public libraries and barangay reading centers by mandating that it be based on the latest computer and electronic library technology.
It also seeks to upgrade reading center facilities with complete standard sets of books, e-books, online research resources and other materials.
Under the bill, the electronic library system shall also be upgraded to the latest system and all cities and municipalities in the country shall be provided with electronically operated library systems.
According to Villafuerte, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is tasked under the bill to assist in providing the cutting-edge computer and electronic library technologies, as well as a fast and reliable Internet connection, through the department’s flagship program, the Technology for Education, Employment, Entrepreneurs, and Economic Development (Tech4ED) Project.
The bill amends RA 7743 by mandating the provision of “complete standard sets of books, e-books, online research resources and other materials” as well as “the latest electronic library system using computers for storing, cataloging, and filing of data and materials”—the end goal being that “by the year 2022, all the cities and municipalities of the Philippines will be provided with electronically-operated library systems.”