SU partners with DOST to share resources for STARBOOKS

Silliman University (SU) partnered with the Department of Science and Technology-Science and Technology Information Institute (DOST-STII) to provide digitized science & technology resources for the Science and Technology Academic and Research-Based Openly-Operated Kiosk Station (STARBOOKS).

Also known as a “library in a box,” STARBOOKS is a kiosk containing thousands of digitized resources on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) accessible in text, video, and interactive formats.

STARBOOKS functions without an internet connection, making information accessible to communities in remote areas.

DOST-STII sources materials for STARBOOKS from its partners in the country and abroad, subscriptions to academic journals and publications, archive collections, and its in-house publications.

SU officially joined DOST-STII’s network of partners to provide content for STARBOOKS after the virtual signing of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between SU and DOST-STII, October 6, 2021 via Zoom.

“(STARBOOKS) has become a useful tool, not only for [its] beneficiaries…but also for the entire educational system, especially the public educational system. So, we’d really like to promote STARBOOKS to a wider set of users and beneficiaries and [partners] through content development,” said DOST-STII Director Richard P. Burgos.

The aims of STARBOOKS, said SU President Betty Cernol McCann, “match” with SU’s aims in its academic programs; its programs related to technopreneurship, business incubation, and innovation; and the Silliman Journal publications that contain science and technology materials.

The Silliman Journal publications are part of the resources that SU will provide to STARBOOKS.

McCann enumerated the aims of STARBOOKS, which is to: create interest in the field of Science and Technology (S&T) which may increase the number of Filipinos enrolling in S&T courses; encourage great and curious minds to develop new ideas, inventions and innovations; and inspire one’s capacity for entrepreneurship and research.

“A university that banks on the pillars of teaching, research, and service will definitely find it most appropriate to have a collaboration in the area of dissemination and utilization of knowledge that is a product of research and application of technology in the service to our community and country,” said McCann.

Alan C. Taule, chief of DOST-STII-Information Resources and Analysis Division, said he hopes the partnership with SU through STARBOOKS will draw more students and researchers in the country to the scientific and research outputs of SU.

“We share the same belief that in order to promote this culture of STEM, we must ensure that we make available all possible knowledge resources to grow more young people to become more curious about nature, about science and mathematics, and how they all come together to make new products, new services, or new ways of seeing things to uplift human life,” said Taule.

According to an article published in the Manila Bulletin last August 2021, there are 5,127 STARBOOKS pods in all regions in the Philippines. A STARBOOKS can also be found at the SU Main Library.

In February 2020, the Department of Education partnered with DOST-STII to install more STARBOOKS pods in schools.

Local government units, non-government organizations, and private corporations can also avail of a STARBOOKS.

DOST-STII’s STARBOOKS has won local and international awards. In 2014, the American Library Association awarded STARBOOKS with the “Presidential Citation for Innovative International Library Projects” for “making science and technology materials available to the general public in remote areas that have few information resources, no libraries and little or no Internet connectivity.”

Each STARBOOKS is composed of a computer placed on a specially designed stand called a “pod.” Aside from STEM-related materials, it also contains information on food and nutrition, health and medicine, emerging technologies, energy, environment, appropriate livelihood technologies, investigative projects, and theses in different fields that exist in the country.

It also includes livelihood videos for alternative learning systems such as the “Tamang DOSTkarte Livelihood Videos” to stimulate every Filipino’s entrepreneurial capacity.

 

 

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

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Virtual MOA signing between SU and DOST-STII. SU was represented by Dr. Betty Cernol McCann, SU president, and Dr. Andrea Soluta, Silliman Journal chairperson. DOST-STII was represented by its director, Richard P. Burgos, and Alan C. Taule, chief of DOST-STII-Information Resources and Analysis Division.

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Members of the Silliman Journal editorial board attended the virtual MOA signing ceremony.

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