Reflection on IRRI Library Visit

IRRI Library Visit: A Reflection

The second venue of our one day tour last October 4 was the IRRI Library in Los Banos, Laguna. The IRRI or International Rice Research Institute was established in 1960. IRRI is one of the largest agricultural research institutes in Asia. Supported by donor and partners, they are known as the Green Revolution in Asia. Almost half of the world’s population relies on rice but nowadays the production is not sustaining the need of people. Their number one goal is to eradicate extreme poverty by helping farmers not only in Laguna but around the globe. They continue to research for new rice varieties which are pest- resistant and can resist extreme weather conditions by using biotechnology.

The IRRI Library was established in 1961. They have four (4) fulltime librarians and 7 support staff; quiet big manpower for a special library like IRRI. This special library caters rice related materials and references. From the anatomy of rice and its varieties up to the different cook book / recipes using rice can be found in this library. Their clients are students, professors, scientists not only in the Philippines but also abroad, and also farmers.  IRRI Library and Documentation Service has also Website powered by Millennium. Some documents can be accessed by the users worldwide through on-line but most of their full text electronic resources are not accessible and not downloadable in their website. What the researchers need to do is to e-mail the head librarian for the documents that they need and the librarian will quickly respond to researcher’s request by emailing the requested materials.

   

The Electronic Resources Section Head explained to us the features of their website hosted by Millennium on how to search for a certain documents and also their online resources. Also their Millennium shows how many times the book was renewed by a certain borrower. Unlike Lopez Museum and Library, we didn’t have a chance to experience and try their Millennium Database. This is because during the discussion, their website didn’t cooperate and resulted to malfunctioning.

The Head Librarian also toured us where printed collection such as books and magazines can be found. The bookshelves were made up of steels enough to hold many books as possible. As estimated, they have more or less 30 bookshelves.

Digitization on their collection has not started yet but they are planning to start it next year.

All in all, the two (2) Libraries that we visited were great and unique on their own ways. But if I will evaluate the two libraries and compare IRRI Library to Lopez Library and Museum, I can say that the Lopez Museum and Library has higher precision and lower recall than the IRRI Library. So in terms of digitization, the Lopez Museum and Library is more advance than the IRRI Library.  

In closing, I would like to add that I have really enjoyed the experience in this class. This subject has helped me to know myself better. It has taught me skills I will take with me to my future jobs. It has been good for me to learn first-hand what this LIS 260 learning is all about. I have enjoyed because it opened my eyes to who I really am as a person. Because of bonding moments that I shared with my classmates, I won’t forget this class. Thank you for Prof. Sharon’s help and to all my classmates for the moments and laughters we shared.