UST Library re-launches ‘Semper Lumina’ exhibit

(“Semper Lumina” exhibit re-opened at the UST Miguel de Benavides Library conference hall held last October 25. Photo by Bea Laforga, Dapitan Post)

The University of Santo Tomas (UST) Miguel de Benavides Library re-opened the “Semper Lumina” exhibit on Friday, aiming to preserve and share the University’s rare book collections to the public through the internet.

The exhibit, which was held at the UST Library conference hall, showcased old books from 1492 up to the mid-1900s that were primarily lodged at the Antonio Vivencio del Rosario (AVdR) Heritage section of the library.

Also featured in the exhibit were the collection of the catalogues of periodicals, archives and rare Filipiniana books of the Heritage section and Archives section.

The exhibit, which was first launched last May 5 at the EDSA Shangri-la Manila Garden Ballroom, highlighted the convenience of using the internet to share the digitized copies of UST’s rare book collections to the public.

“If the copies [of the books] are already digitized and [are on] the web, it is easier for you to navigate the original copy,” the AVdR Heritage section Head Librarian Diana Padilla said in an interview with the Dapitan Post.

Padilla said the collections available on the web are not just for Thomasians but also for the national audience.

“This promotes information discovery. We are sharing it to the public because not everybody is aware that UST has these rare collections [or that] the archives [have] these important documents, that not all people in the University or in our country know about,” she added.

Conservation, digitization, publication

Padilla explained that making the library’s book collection available online needed conservation, digitization and publication.

In conservation, rare books in the heritage collections were restored and preserved in a laboratory and took at least a month to restore one book, according to the Heritage section head librarian.

“In our statistics, our target per month is one book, to restore, because it takes a lot of processes before we can finally restore one book,” she said.

Padilla explained that through digitization, the printed copies were converted to soft copies so that it would be published through a website.

She said the CONTENTdm software was used to make the collections available online and be accessible to a wider audience.

Padilla emphasized that the publication of the collections on the web would allow users to access the copies and make its accessibility easier.

“We just want to share everything that we have from the library [and] the archives [with] the [internet] users. So, that’s the gift,” she said.

The digitized copies of the collections were published and can be accessed through digilib.ust.edu.ph from Oct. 27 this year until March 10, 2018.

The exhibit, which culminated the “Lumina Pandit” held last 2011 Quadricentennial celebrations, was a sustainable partnership program between the UST Library and the Union Bank of the Philippines. MILDRED MIRA and BEATRICE LAFORGA