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Undervalued, understaffed, underdeveloped, and underutilized? The status of public libraries in the eleven municipalities of rural Iloilo Province, Philippines

Libraries, as service-oriented organizations, are being guided on every aspect of their operation by local and international standards. In the Philippines, public libraries are expected to adhere to the stipulations of the Philippine Standards for Public Libraries. This study was conducted to assess the adherence of the 11 municipal libraries in Iloilo Province to the following areas of the Standards: library administration, collection management, services and utilization, physical facilities, financial resources, and linkages, networking and collaboration. Findings revealed that most libraries were non-compliant with almost all aspects of the Standards. Specifically, the majority lacked support from their local government units and were managed by non-professional librarians with inadequate knowledge and skills in successfully managing a library. Additionally, most libraries have a low budget to purchase updated resources of various types and formats and appropriate facilities and equipment. Furthermore, almost all libraries lacked networks and linkages, and collaborative activities that could have helped librarians enhance their skills, improve library resources and services, and increase their visibility and value to the stakeholders. Consequently, most municipal libraries could not fulfill the community's information needs; therefore, they remained undervalued and underutilized.