On August 9, 2023, the College of Information and Computing Sciences (CICS) and the Miguel de Benavides Library launched BiblioTech Ai, a satellite library located at the 19th floor of the Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati Building.
Intended to aid CICS students in their studies and also serve as a space of recreation, BiblioTech Ai library offers a plethora of books, ebooks, and other published materials that are essential to CICS students, academic staff, and educators alike. It also has board games in its shelves.
CICS Dean Asst. Prof. Jerralyn T. Padua, MSCS said the satellite library marks a new chapter to CICS’s “bookish lives”. “The library also offers a low-risk strategy to expand your choices of reading matter,” Dean Padua said. “Libraries are also not about books on shelves. They are also an important social meeting point, which is accessible and affordable to all […] they are naturally democratic and [it is] an enormous anchor in our society for all sorts of reasons,” she added.
Meanwhile, CICS Regent Rev. fr. Gaspar Sigaya, O.P., the concurrent Assistant Prefect of Libraries, highlighted the importance of libraries as sources of knowledge., “It can also be a place that offers smart and clear answers to even most difficult questions,” fr. Sigaya said.
For Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs Prof. Cheryl R. Peralta DrPH, the future of education is hybrid and CICS is the cusp of humans and technology. “With the opening of BiblioTech Ai Library, this will not [just] be a venue for students and academic staff [to] access materials, but it will be a source and an avenue for collaboration for the propagation of more knowledge in the area of technology,” Prof. Peralta said.
Secretary-General Rev. fr. Louie R. Coronel. O.P., EHL noted that the satellite library’s inauguration is also a celebration of libraries’ power in shaping minds of the young. “[The library] seamlessly weaves together the various elements of tradition and innovation,” fr. Coronel said.
