5 Cool Academic Libraries in Cebu, Philippines

We had a tour on university libraries on Cebu last month. This is for the class LIS 315: Management of Libraries and Information Centers, where we are required to apply the management skills discussed in class by organizing this tour and the seminar. It sounds easy, but this subject gave us the most challenges. There we first experienced conflict within us classmates and with teachers. Here we realized the importance of INITIATIVE (that word is funny to us now, that's what a teacher repeated endlessly on her sermon about our laziness ). So, here are the cool libraries we visited:

5. University of Cebu library
The library looks like any normal library, but its strength is on their in-house software to manage their own databases, made by their IT librarians.
Cool Thing: Friendly work students, accessible and user-friendly computer systems.

4. Cebu Normal University library
I like the university's 'revamped old school' design. Most books can be taken out of the library and borrowed for a week (because the Reference, Filipiniana, and other special collections are mostly for room-use only in most libraries). They also have a museum, as the school was once a torture camp of the invading Japanese during World War 2. Another thing to be fascinated about is its grisly, sad history, and how they started all over again.
Cool Thing: Cool, pro-active, helpful Librarians.

3. Cebu Doctors University library
We weren't overwhelmed so much with the library, but with the school's enormous building. (Daw mall lang...)
Cool Thing: A sound-proof 'chat room' for those who want to talk to their phones while inside the library. Book Drop electronic boxes are available throughout the university, so students returning books will simply leave them there without going in the library.

2. University of San Jose-Recoletos library
We admired this library's excellent and save-spacing interior design.
Cool Thing: A new touchscreen self-service kiosk that allows the borrower to scan out the books for borrowing, the device will simply print a receipt of transaction, including the due date.

1. University of San Carlos-Talamban library
This is now the largest library in the country with 16,000 square meters of floor space.  It was launched this year, so the elevator wasn't working yet when we went there, and walking up and down that building was damn tiring. We thought that the building was exaggerated, but cool. We were overwhelmed with its sheer size: its nearly the size of SM City Iloilo.

Cool Thing:  The building itself. There is a special elevator for books to be delivered within the floors. They have comprehensive and well-preserved collection of rare books, archives, and manuscripts dating from the 1800s. Their energy-saving design maximizes natural light with glass walls/windows and high ceilings.