Eye Opener
Put the City Library in conspicuous place
The City Public Library is isolated on the second floor of the Iloilo Terminal Market at J. De Leon-Mabini-Fuentes streets this city. It is rather difficult to climb the 2nd floor going to the library as there is only one passage going to it while the two other stairways which are very near the library are closed. What is worse is that these two closed stairways stink. Why were the two stairways constructed anyway when they are not to be used for its intended purpose? The iron grills are already rusty and about to fall apart. City authorities should look into this and determine whether to close forever the stairways going to the session hall, the City Public Library, the Comelec office, etc.
When this columnist visited the library recently, only one woman was there doing research. Two days later I went back to the public library and there was no single reader. The present city public library's location is far from schools and colleges. Even the elderly people who want to read newspapers, books and magazines are discouraged to go there as climbing the one-way stairway and walking the long way through is nauseating.
In the 70s, 80s, and early 90s when the library was located on the ground floor below the former Iloilo City Session Hall near Plaza Libertad, an average of a hundred people daily utilized effectively the City Public Library. When it was transferred to the Villanueva ancestral home at corner Burgos-Rizal streets in year 2000, library users began to decrease.
Why not put the library on the ground floor of the Central Market on Iznart-Rizal streets where students from the University of Iloilo, Sun Yat Sen School, Santa Maria Catholic School, Dominican College and two other computer schools in nearby place can do their research work?
As this columnist browsed over the books on the shelves of the City Public Library, I discovered many books and publications which may not be found in school libraries. Books on nursing, teaching, journalists, businessmen, mass comm, and many others are available on the shelves of the City Public Library. But the question is that the library seems to be isolated from the reading public! I suggest that our city councilors whose session hall is just a stone's throw away from the City Public Library should make an ocular inspection and see for themselves how useful is the public library to students, businessmen, teachers, retirees and the general public. They should also inquire why the stairways going to the library are being closed.