My Knowledge Portal

It was my first time then to go in Lopez Museum and Library. And I didn’t think that I would be having a hard time looking for that building along Meralco Avenue. Anyway, upon entering the building, you’ll be surprised to the small but cool and should I say “weird” collection of the Lopezes. As a matter of fact, I did try some of the collection like the sound-wave thing and the sound-producing-metal-when-scratch (I’m sorry I can’t remember the names). But those were just side dishes because the main course was not the museum, but the library.

With all honesty, the library is not that impressive. It’s just a big box full of books and a small corner for the staffs. Not so much with decorations or any mentally-stimulating and good-place-for-reading feeling factor. Perhaps this is the case of most special libraries. But then again, the place or the ambience was not the main purpose of the trip, it was their collection and their digitization project.

It was my first time to see up close and personal the process of digitization. And all I can say is that, it’s boring. Forgive me for being so rude but I can’t imagine myself flipping the page, scanning, saving, flipping the page, scanning saving (until it 5:00pm). I know and I realize the importance of digitization. It’s not only for conservation and preservation purposes but also for multiple access of a material which is fragile and rare. Thank God their equipment is not that so old school.

However, during the question and answer portion, there were some points that I really pondered on. First, their library system or the way they search for a material. I forgot the name of the system but when a researcher was using that, (he’s looking for tobacco commercial, I think) I was shocked because the presentation of the search output was too broad. There’s no provision to delimit your search or even other search parameters that’s why you need to browse almost all of the search results (haggard).Second, it is not accessible on line. For me, it defeats the purpose of digitizing your collection if you cannot access it in remote areas. Just imagine that you’re in ABS-CBN (Quezon Ave., Quezon City) and looking for a book about the Lopez collection and you have to travel to Lopez Museum (Ortigas, Pasig City) just to search! And lastly, I also found out that their collection is not properly indexed since their indexing job is also outsourced from the company they hired for the digitization project.

Well, those are just my few sentiments / constructive criticisms regarding their digitization project. Despite of all those drawbacks (since there is no perfect system) I still salute the staff of the Lopez Museum for all the effort of digitizing their collection since it is a great start of improving the conservation practices as well as the promotion of multiple access. More than this, I also give high regard to them for opening their library and sharing their expertise to us. I hope for the improvement of their collection and their project.