LAGAWE, IFUGAO | Towns in the Cordillera which are inaccessible to the worldwide web will not be left behind in terms of information and materials on science and technology including available livelihood materials.
Shiela Claver, Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Cordillera information officer, told teachers and librarians from the different schools in the province that the DOST library in Taguig has over 80,000 science and technology information which were used by only over a thousand researchers prior to 2011.
With the Science and Technology Information Institute (STII) that designed the Science and Technology Academic and Research-based Openly Operated Kiosk Stations or STARBOOKS, the materials have become available to hundreds of thousands of people, even those in the far-flung areas of the country, without going to Metro Manila and even without an internet access.
Cordillera has 85 kiosks in all the provinces, mostly in schools in far-flung communities. “Our goal is one kiosk in every barangay,” Claver said. There are now 1,292 kiosks nationwide.
Government and private schools, offices and private institutions in the Cordillera have availed of the STARBOOKS which is a software provided for free by DOST. Interested offices simply have to provide a computer meeting the specification, and enter into a memorandum of agreement.
The first Philippine Science digital library developed in 2011 contains all DOST publications, livelihood videos, education videos, library materials, educational games for children, special collections, interactive video and Science and Technology researches. These materials are updated every three months to allow the STARBOOKS software to meet the information needs of the public.
This year, the SUPERBOOKS was developed to allow the citizens to help in archiving science and technology materials.
“We are encouraging the public to upload data, thesis and power point presentations on science and technology,” which will be received by the clearing house at the DOST to verify facts before they are publicly posted under SUPERBOOKS’ website, Claver said. The same materials on SUPERBOOKS are also provided to the kiosks when updated.
To protect the content, searches are not downloadable but are printable, as a measure to prevent copyright infringement.