Mostly a Personal Post: Libraries or Bookstores?

A recent post from The Filipino Librarian got me thinking. Well, it’s no secret to my friends that I prefer libraries to bookstores. I don’t exactly consider myself a bibliophile now, although I used to be… and I was a particularly stingy bibliophile, which means I actively searched for ways to satisfy my craving without spending too much.

This was how I got to know about the book rental shops around the university I spent four years in. There weren’t many even then – in fact the only one I actually frequented was Charisma in the UP Diliman Shopping Centre. It had a VERY good selection of science fiction and fantasy titles. They’re still there if I recall correctly… I wonder if they still have my member info (and my delinquency record ^^; I sure hope not).

Growing up, I was a big fan of libraries, too. In order to better explain why I like libraries more than bookstores, I’ll just respond to the comments made by Vanny Bicomong in the Filipino Librarian’s blog…

1) The library is too far from me. (By Library, I only know of the National Library or the Ateneo Library — I don’t know of others I can enter.)

I lived within campus during my university years, so I could library-hop in my spare time. My favorites at the time were the UP Main Library (trasure trove!), the Engineering library, and the Fine Arts library. I’m afraid I don’t know if the UP Main Library is open to everyone. I wish it was! The people there make a serious effort to keep up with the latest educational materials, I think. The last time I had to do research there as an alumna, I had to go through a rigorous (and IIRC, somewhat costly) process just to secure a “special” library card. I just don’t know if students from other schools would have an equally hard time.

But I’ll have to say that in high school, I used to live one hour away from my campus in Malolos, yet I braved the heat and the traffic during weekends just to be able to visit the town’s public library. Granted, I was very much the little nerd at the time: I grabbed at whatever meant access to books that I could read almost for free (I still had to pay something like P12, sans the ID photos, for my library card).

This may sound like one of those “i used to walk five miles just to get to the nearest typewriter” stories, but suffice it to say, I can understand if libraries are just too far out of the way for other people. For the record, I didn’t visit the Malolos public library a lot of times, because I didn’t enjoy the fiction selections – besides, the 45 minutes of one-way commuting itself felt like a huge waste of time.

Right now, I live near a mall. This mall has a National Bookstore outlet. I notice one specific teenage boy poring through the books in the Filipiniana section almost every time I visit. But every time I approach him to try and ask him about himself, he shies away, as if he was expecting that I wanted the space to browse through the Filipiniana section for myself.

I can’t help but think this boy should be in a library, not sneaking around in a bookstore.

2) The books in libraries are old and outdated. If I wanted the latest titles, it’s better for me to go to Powerbooks and browse there.

Would have to agree with this. I remember thinking of Powerbooks as a true godsend, because it was the first major local bookstore I’d heard of that allowed people to browse before buying. And even now, the procurers make it a point to purchase the latest bestsellers, which rocks.

But there’s still something to be said for classic titles, which are harder to find in bookstores – like very old and dusty copies of Arthur Clarke’s short story compilations. And how many bookstores actually carry “Doc” Smith, Lord Dunsany and Theodore Sturgeon anymore, as a matter of course?

3) Library ambience is not as good as Powerbooks. Libraries bring back memories of school research, Powerbooks is more envigorating.

I may be a minority in this, but I don’t pay much attention to ambience. I used to visit libraries for fun as much as research. However, I do appreciate the opportunity to throw ambience out the window and just bring home the books I want to read.

I also don’t like reading in public, and IMHO soft bookstore cushions are even more public than hard public library desks. I never read in libraries, for the record – I use the desks to sort out the books I want to bring home for the day, and tick off my reading list.

One more issue I take with bookstores is the small reading space. I’ll agree that the reading atmosphere is better in bookstores, but I have so many problems figuring out where to sit, especially if I drop by late in the day. Once I’m seated my conscience plagues me, because I want to read so many titles but I may be depriving other people of their right to sit down and enjoy themselves. Kills the fun of it all right there.

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…and all this just leads me to think about how many people out there are just like me, who prefer libraries and book rentals (aka private libraries) to bookstores. I’m not even sure they have access to the Internet (God knows I didn’t) so they may not be able to comment here.

I want to know about all the Philippines-based libraries or book rentals anyone can recommend. I’m especially interested in those that contain “genre” titles, like fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc. If I come across enough info, I’ll put together a list of book rental shops and make it a part of this blog, and find a way to disseminate the list offline.
I’m hoping that there’s enough input to make an automatic user submission page, but I’ll have to admit – I’m not really banking on it. For one thing, there aren’t many book rental outfits around. For another, I can understand if people want to keep their inner sanctums secret. Book rental membership offers a degree of privilege and exclusivity, after all; if more people know about a certain rental shop, more people will want to borrow from it, and it will then be harder to reserve and acquire titles based on a person’s reading schedule. The same goes for libraries.

Another thing is, rental businesses are usually small, only semi-legal, and transient – in a year or so business might dip, and suddenly your favorite book rental shop at the corner would become a PX goods store, or a carinderia. This is why I’m worried that book rental shop owners may not actually wish to advertise their establishments.

Book rental shops in the Philippines traditionally do not have the expansive nature of a bookstore or a library. From what I know, private rental shops mostly take root from personal collections, which could be limited by genre depending on the collectors’ preferences. And in my experience, book rental shops contain fairly limited collections of romance and suspense titles.

Still, more people knowing about just ONE book rental shop would be equivalent to more people reading. And if there was a way to get this information to more people, I’d love to be part of it.

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This will definitely make my list:

The Leocadio Alonsagay Dioso Memorial Public Library (Pandan, Panay)