READ through to the last part of this article and get a chance to win a Lenovo notebook.
It sounds like a popular coffee shop and brand but STARBOOKS or the Science and Technology Academic and Research-Based Openly Operated KioskS was actually conceived as an offline science library-in-a-box. It contains thousands of digital resources on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that are easily retrievable.
Early beginnings
STARBOOKS was the brainchild of former DOST Assistant Secretary and DOST-STII officer-in-charge Raymund E. Liboro, now the commissioner of the National Privacy Commission.
He noticed that only a few people were going to libraries. “STARBOOKS could just be the simple solution that we need in raising the level of our aptitude in science and mathematics,” Liboro said in one of his interviews.
In a simple launch on June 24, 2011 at the lobby of DOST-STII, then DOST Secretary Mario G. Montejo proudly described STARBOOKS “as our humble contribution to the world of education and science.”
In its early years, STARBOOKS had few first adopters, one of which was the DOST Regional Office IX that got funding to roll it out in the region.
STARBOOKS made the public debut during the 2011 Regional Invention Contests and Exhibits in Davao City as one of the highlighted technologies during the weeklong invention contest.
It was in the succeeding year that STARBOOKS had its first mass deployment in Region 8 through a partnership brokered by DOST Regional Office 8 and the Department of Education Leyte Division under the project titled, “Piloting of STARBOOKS in Selected Schools in Leyte.” The project benefitted 44 public schools in the province.
The novelty of STARBOOKS was its selling point. By 2014, all regions of the country had their own STARBOOKS installed in various provinces. Soon, more digital library resources were added to the STARBOOKS system and its network had grown as many organizations in both private and public sectors opened their resources to STARBOOKS users.
1000th STARBOOKS
FROM its initial run in 2011, STARBOOKS had its 1,000th site installed in 2016 in Calauan, a second-class municipality in the province of Laguna. This milestone also marked the launch of Super STARBOOKS, a much-needed product upgrade.
Dayap National High School was the first to have the Super STARBOOKS, marking the shift to upgraded contents and terminals for additional users. It now provides students, researchers, and S&T aficionados with thousands of free S&T related materials in text, audio, and video formats. Among these were K-12 interactive courseware on mathematics and science developed by the DOST’s Science Education Institute, livelihood videos dubbed as “TamangDOSTkarte” that provides parents and entrepreneurial students a thing or two about various livelihood opportunities within their sphere of interest, and other engaging videos.
The new DOST secretary, Prof. Fortunato T. de la Peña, shared how the Science Department through STARBOOKS “strives to cut boundaries so we can reach those who are in need of our services and assistance, alleviate poverty, and expand our local industries.”
Several innovations were also introduced as the offline system rebooted with a new and improved interface design and additional contents. Moreover, the solar-powered STARBOOKS was also introduced in Patong Elementary School in Barangay Malibago, Cateel, Davao Oriental thus breaking through connectivity barriers.
At present, with the prevailing pandemic that has changed the work and learning landscape, DOST-STII and STARBOOKS saw another opportunity—the need to develop mobile applications, engaging websites, and alternative ways of engaging the public and various stakeholders. As a result, it was able to nimbly pivot to the demands and challenges of the “new normal” by adding new and exciting mobile apps.
Last year, two mobile applications were launched—the fun STARBOOKS Quiz Mobile App and the STARBOOKS Online App for easy access and navigation on an Android phone. It also produced four informational videos to provide additional information on STARBOOKS.
Local and international recognition
THE rollout was met with warm reception both from the government and private sectors as local government units recognized its impact on students of schools in the provinces and in remote areas that lacked books and other learning resources.
Soon, several organizations took notice of STARBOOKS.
Following Typhoon Yolanda’s devastation in 2013, STARBOOKS was presented at the World Library and Information Congress of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in Lyon, France. It became the darling of the congress. The presentation centered on STARBOOKS installation in public schools devastated by the typhoon as part of the government’s Building Back Better relief initiative.
The following year, STARBOOKS received the Presidential Citation for Innovative International Library Projects from the American Library Association at the San Francisco Public Library in the United States for “making science and technology materials available to the general public in remote areas that have few information resources, no libraries and little or no Internet connectivity.” ALA is the world’s oldest and largest professional organization for librarians. It has played an active role in promoting access to information, opposing censorships and championing the libraries and librarians.
Back home, it was awarded the Outstanding Library Program for 2015 by the Philippine Association of Academic and Research Librarians (PAARL) during their 43rd Annual General Assembly.
After several deployments of the offline kiosks, DOST-STII leveled up and developed the online version to keep in step with the changing demand. This innovation improved its monitoring mechanism and made it easier to upgrade the content in each kiosk.
As the years went by, more awards and recognition came to STARBOOKS.
In 2017, STARBOOKS bagged two Anvil Awards from the Public Relations Society of the Philippines, namely, the Silver Anvil for Public Relations Tool and the Gold Anvil for Public Relations Program. Moreover, STARBOOKS made it to the final round among top 3 entries (out of 402) that vied for the Grand Anvil.
That same year, STARBOOKS became a finalist in the 2017 Government Best Practice Recognition by the Development Academy of the Philippines.
Also, in recognition of its being the first science and technology library-in-a-box that works offline, the Presidential Communications Operations Office recognized STARBOOKS with the FOI Special Award at the Freedom of Information Summit on December 12, 2019.
Recently, STARBOOKS was recognized for “Excellence in Government Communication Programs” in the 18th Philippine Quill Awards. The Awards organized by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) hailed its impact in bringing knowledge on science, mathematics, and technical fields directly to the people, especially to students in economically-challenged schools and communities.
This year, for the fifth year in a row, STARBOOKS again makes it to the National Priority Program of the National Economic and Development Authority where donors get to enjoy a tax break equivalent to 100 percent of their donation to the STARBOOKS program.
The biggest recognition, however, came from the Department of Education which agreed on February 14, 2020 to adopt STARBOOKS and include it in their learning portal and preload it on devices for distribution all over the country. The resources in STARBOOKS particularly the K-12 learning modules on science and math aligned with the competency-based instruction program of DepEd became a boon to teachers and students alike in the altered learning conditions under the pandemic.
International cooperation
THE US Peace Corps in 2015 visited STARBOOKS to learn more about this innovation. Volunteer Ji Yusi from Chengdu, China praised STARBOOKS for its user-friendly interface and the vast collection of information and available videos. Ji was surprised to see how STARBOOKS was able to integrate a library system into a standalone kiosk that was unheard of in her hometown. “We are learning from your experience,” Ji added.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Karr, a Peace Corps librarian, described it as cutting-edge and advanced as database resources are expensive to build and maintain.
STARBOOKS was also invited to the Annual Kuala Lumpur Engineering and Science Fair (KLESF) in MINES International Exhibition and Convention Center at MINES Resort in Selangor, Malaysia as one of the Philippines’ exhibitors.
The IBM Corporate Service Corps in 2018 sent a team from Russia, Poland and the USA to assess STARBOOKS and future-proof it, creating a high-level strategy and roadmap, recommending scalable system solutions and hands-on training for the technical team. STARBOOKS is building and adapting for growth and the increasing demands for contents so it will be more widely accessible to students across the Philippines —both online and offline.
How to win a Lenovo laptop
ON its 10th year, with the theme STARBOOKS@10’To!, STARBOOKS is not slowing down nor resting on its laurels. It has set its eyes on a grand vision with plans that are already in store for the public. In the age of Artificial Intelligence and autonomous technologies, the public is assured that STARBOOKS will continue to outdo and reinvent itself and remain relevant for the next 10, 20 years or more.
In celebration of this milestone, here is your chance to win a free Lenovo laptop. Simply join the #STARBOOKS10VlogToWinIt contest on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/StarbooksPH/posts/4770892302939185). All you have to do is to make a one-minute vlog that answers this question: “How would you use STARBOOKS today?” Top 10 best videos will be selected and receive prizes, and the very best will win the Lenovo laptop. E-mail entries to dost.starbooks@gmail.com. Winners will be announced on July 22 at the STARBOOKS Whiz App launch. Don’t forget to like the DOST-STARBOOKS and share the FB post for a valid entry.
PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier association for senior communications professionals around the world. Richard P. Burgos is the director of the Science and Technology Information Institute of the Department of Science and Technology. A seasoned communicator, he has helped build some of the biggest brands in the information technology industry such as IBM, HP, Enchanted Kingdom and Sun Microsystems.
PR Matters is devoting a special column each month to answer our readers’ questions about public relations. Please send your questions or comments to askipraphil@gmail.com.