Manila – Senator Sherwin Gatchalian is advocating for the use of digitalization to bolster the culture of reading among learners and their communities. During a Senate hearing on Wednesday, focused on Senate Bill 475 or the National Reading Month Act, Gatchalian emphasized the need to integrate digital habits with traditional reading methods.
According to Philippines News Agency, chief librarian of the National Library of the Philippines’ (NLP) Reference Division, the NLP has made strides in digitalization. The NLP’s online public access catalog, accessible via the NLP’s website and in various school and public libraries, offers digital copies of resources, including children’s electronic resources. Carungui noted that approximately one million pages of materials have been digitized so far.
Gatchalian is proposing to institutionalize access to this digital catalog as part of the National Reading Month Act. As of November 2023, there are 1,660 public libraries affiliated with the NLP, including 56 provincial libraries, three congressional libraries, three locally funded projects, one regional library in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, 116 city libraries, 611 municipal libraries, and 870 barangay reading centers. Gatchalian’s goal is to ensure access to these libraries, thereby promoting a reading culture and improving access to both digital and physical materials.
The National Reading Month Act, as proposed, designates November for nationwide reading programs. The Department of Education (DepEd) will lead in formulating policies and strategies to foster reading, aiming to prepare learners for policy-making, nation-building, and contributing to economic, social, and cultural development. Additionally, Gatchalian suggests that Public Telecommunications Entities should provide free public access to DepEd’s learning management systems, including web-based applications, online educational platforms, digital libraries, and other online knowledge hubs. According to the proposal, accessing these applications would incur no data charges for users.