Over 30 libraries dot the 493 hectares of UP Diliman (UPD), spanning hundreds of thousands of volumes and servicing thousands of students. This is par for the course at the national university, where scholarship and knowledge production require not only adequately funded plans but also maintenance by dozens of assistants and professionals like Jocelyn Basa, head librarian at the College of Arts and Letters (CAL) library.

But systemic slips stall that mandate’s fulfillment. Barraged with issues relating to staffing, training, and administration, UPD’s librarians struggle to perform what they were trained to do best: preserve knowledge and provide accessible library services to the university.

Service Shortfalls

Knowledge production requires extensive management. Since the return of face-to-face learning on campus, many tasks hit librarians to adjust and retrofit systems. Almost two years after the return of students, faculty, and staff to the university, unit libraries like in CAL have begun hiring student assistants to fill in staffing gaps, according to Basa. Many other unit libraries found themselves in similar situations, turning to students to help around and keep up with administrative duties.

Among such duties is the need to keep temperatures and humidity at a level conducive to the preservation of books and other written material, entailing investment and extra effort to maintain facilities. Since the CAL library is located in a damp basement-level location, further measures to preserve the books, including pest control amid moist atmosphere, had to occasionally be taken, said Basa.

On top of day-to-day services, librarians are expected to act as advocates, salespeople, and event managers who function as familiar faces and frontliners in a library setting. At times, they must manage not only logistics but also students’ mental health crises.

“Short of being a guidance counselor, how do you approach or attend to students na may pinagdadaanan? We need training,” said Basa.

Such shortfalls translate into less accessible services for students. Conducive library environments positively impact student engagement in learning and promote collaboration with classmates, found a 2024 study of 45 universities in China. But those spaces must be accessible in the first place.

Prolonged Projects

A dilemma of space also befalls Gonzalez Hall, home of the UP Main Library, where renovations for structural integrity and ease of learning began in April 2019. Originally set to be finished by October 2020, the construction and renovations remain far from completion today as delays were exacerbated by the pandemic.

Five years later, Phase II of the retrofitting is only 30-percent complete despite P400 million initially allotted for the project under the “Build Build Build” program. The project’s implementation is led by the  Department of Public Works and Highways, often flagged by the Commission on Audit for delays and nonimplementation of infrastructure projects, including the supposed renovation of the University Library in 2018. Meanwhile, structural modifications to Gonzalez Hall require the National Commission for Culture and the Arts’s permission due to the building’s designation as a national cultural treasure.

As of writing, the UP Project Management Office, the university office monitoring the renovation’s progress, has yet to respond to the Collegian’s inquiry on updates behind the building’s delayed completion.

Split into several branch offices ever since, the Main Library’s employees are deprived of a cohesive workspace by the delayed renovations. At CAL, librarians find themselves skimping on space and unable to serve students adequately with the library’s maximum seating capacity at 99 against a college population of over 1,600.

 “Maliban sa CAL majors, the college also entertains students from other colleges na nag-te-take ng [general elective] subjects … The space is not enough,” said Basa.

All this while the need for shared learning spaces for students to collaborate and engage beyond silent research or study surfaces anew in a post-pandemic setup. While college libraries such as those in Law and Engineering explicitly designate sections for such areas, the largest planned UP Main Library learning commons still await Gonzalez Hall’s renovation.

Librarians’ need for space and absorptive capacity mirrors struggles elsewhere on campus: Contracted last January 6, 2023, commercial venture DiliMall is already set for soft opening by August, while the new CAL faculty commons and renovations at Gonzalez Hall have both long been lagging in construction.

Breaking Ground

State and university capacity must be used to fashion comfortable and cohesive spaces for university librarians and the students they serve. While digital frameworks and databases can partially fulfill needs of space, physical archives still remain most resilient.

 “Eventually ba di na natin kailangan ng espasyo, kasi puro electronic na rin? Walang obsolescence ang literature,” said Basa.

Despite the adoption of best practices from other libraries and voluntary donation drives such as UPgrade for the Main Library to backstop management woes, student voices remain central to identifying gaps in the university library system, said Basa. “Kasi katuwang naman namin ang estudyante sa pag-a-assess ng strength and weakness ng facilities and yung collection,” she said.

Sectoral spaces not only for students but for the wider UPD community should take priority, especially as university vendors fear commercial threats to their livelihoods. Projects must align with the university’s basic mandate prescribing not profit motive but scientific and scholarly excellence.

Without adequate spaces to produce and preserve knowledge, librarians and students alike will be left adrift in a relentless cycle, always catching up to learning gaps—and a university short of learning can hardly function at all.

If UP is to be a community of scholars as its charter envisions, the administration must reassess and address the needs of scholarship and heed the calls of students and librarians, who are sometimes relegated to the margins. ●