Myke U. Obenieta

“BECAUSE the people are sleeping,” replies a kindergarten kid to her teacher’s question: Why is it necessary to be quiet in the library?

Because who really cares? Or so another unsettling question might as well squirm out of a bookworm’s ear instead of an answer. Especially if we hear only a sigh or let things plop over with nary a pipsqueak of protest against the apathy for a timeworn entity. With regards to Cebu City’s public library, why worry and be sorry?

As reported, City Hall is set to shut down the public library to pave way for the renovation and upscaling of the museum within the building that has been housing the dust-bound books for so long. With a bang must the new year begin, with a drum roll along with a death knell.

Let go. Isn’t the old, like the 69-year-old Rizal Memorial Library, just another word short of a shrug for useless? Look, the library has been languishing at the fringe of the local government’s priorities.

Ever since one writer defined a library as “the soul’s burial-ground,” the mausoleum-like structure just a shriek away from a blood bank facility would have made Dracula dream sweetly. What’s in the library, after all, looks like it has given up its ghost. It’s public knowledge, what’s spelled out in this paper’s recent editorial on the decomposing state of the library: “Its inside decrepit, the reading materials badly needing updating and its equipment primitive.”

Because the benighted state of the library could also be the stuff of daydreams, Acting Mayor Michael Rama averred that the library would only be closed temporarily until a more permanent structure could rise somewhere in the reclaimed South Road Properties. It would be a “modern, world-class facility,” assured Rama, except that he seemed to have lapsed into somnambulist bliss, ignoring to provide a blueprint with a budget and a timeframe for waking out of his dream.

Lest the City Council disturbs the complacency of the community, who could be collectively as moonstruck into measuring progress in the light of skyscrapers and malls sprouting overnight, the leadership opted to keep the Cebuanos in the dark. No public hearing has been called so far regarding the fate of the library.

But the way things are, it seems the council’s action is in accord with what appears to be a collective disregard for the library. No public outcry so far. Never mind how essential a library is to the city’s notion on culture and civilization, without which progress is just whistling at the moon.

“We hope to improve the reading culture of the Cebuanos,” wished librarian Rosario Chua. But is the public up to such a challenge at a time when reading looms like task only for the starry-eyed? Will the Cebuanos take the cue of the local chapter of the Friends of Libraries, setting out “to educate students and the public about the value of a public library,” by opposing the planned closure and getting themselves heard at the City Council?

It’s a new year, all right. Here’s hoping this chapter in the city’s history will not segue into the shadow of a book called “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

(www.brewingmyke.blogspot.com / geemyko@gmail.com)

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(January 6, 2009 issue)
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