Dashed dreams of public librarianship

While still in library school, a family friend came to visit me in Cebu to borrow my notes on library science. He was appointed by their town mayor as municipal librarian with a salary that I, even now is not earning. He stayed with us for a few days because he also wanted some instructions especially on indexing which at that moment was mostly what he was trying to do in his library. I told him to enroll in an MS degree in library science so he could have the post permanently. He was not interested, he felt too old at 36 to get another degree, and he already had two besides. He said instead that he'll hold the fort for me until I'm able to take over and he'll be just as happy as my assistant. He died of heart attack (may he--André rest in peace) even before I graduated.

A classmate in the review for the board, who heard of the post from her sister who married somebody from that place, applied for the post but she never heard anything from the town officials. The post died with him I suppose. Or until such time as the town officials become politically motivated to resurrect the position which by law should be available.

I still had two years to finish library school when I first heard of that post and I somehow built a dream of public librarianship based upon the ideal public librarianship learned in library school. Even now I still dream of that dream--the things I could do given the right support. It is such a culturally diverse and resource-rich place, but at the rate public librarianship is going in the Philippines, there might never be a public library in that municipality.