Own the Knowledge, Buy the Book

My brother, my number one fan, always laughed his head off every time I narrate to him incidents in the library that put me and in all probability my profession in a bad light. He rather liked me being notorious. It is exactly opposite to my stereotyped librarian image--quiet, timid, mousy. He always tells me that for as long as I am fighting ignorance and injustice I should not be afraid to be labeled "malditang librarian". "Your being a librarian is just incidental to your principles." I know I am not liked by some people because when they have business with my unit, they looked for another staff even when I am already there ready and available to provide them with a service.

The incidents I told him about are when faculty complained about the due dates and the overdue fines imposed on them. They want semestral borrowing "rights" to their reference book/s. I have always thought that a faculty must have at least one, the most basic reference book of his own on the subject he is teaching. Owning your own reference book is as basic as your knowledge of your subject matter. What does the cost matter when your whole professional career and your means of living rest on your teaching that subject? And what does the cost of the book mean to a professional being paid to teach the subject compared to the cost of the book to a student?

For others this attitude is putting librarians in a bad light. For me it is simply protecting the interests of my primary clientele, the students, who mostly are coming from low to middle income families.

Ironically, this could be a cycle. These students could be children of teachers who also do not own their own reference book. Then here is the vicious cycle of injustice and ignorance should end. In The Library.