Meycauayan City, the 3rd city of Bulacan, can be found at the southernmost edge of the province, just before reaching the cities of Valenzuela and Caloocan, Metro Manila. Before being converted to city in 2005, it enjoyed being the most urban and progressive municipality of Southern Bulacan, and is known for many industries foremost of which are the jewelry and leather tanning industries. The City of Meycauayan Library and Mini-Heritage Museum showcases the history and heritage of this city as well as serve as its repository of local culture and history materials.
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| View of the interior of the present City of Meycauayan Library |
The library is presently being managed by Mrs. Jeanne Eunice M. Lim and can be found at the 2nd floor, left wing of the Meycauayan City Hall in Barangay Camalig, in the eastern part of the city, away from the city's more urban and busy center.
CITY OF MEYCAUAYAN LIBRARY AND MINI-HERITAGE MUSEUM
The Meycauayan Municipal Library has been existing and serving the information needs of the Meycaueños for approximately 4 or 5 decades already since it was established during Mayor Celso Legaspi’s time who served the town from 1964 until 1978. The first librarian was the then Municipal Secretary Serafin Valenzuela. It was located in the old municipal hall of Meycauayan in Poblacion for a long time but was transferred along with the city hall in Barangay Camalig in 2010. Before the present librarian assumed the position, it was served by the long time librarian, Mrs. Sarita Rubio. Librarians who served the municipal library between Mr. Valenzuela and Mrs. Rubio are currently not identified.
The present librarian, Jeanne Eunice Lim, is a licensed librarian. She finished her Bachelor in Library and Information Science from the Bulacan State University in 2013 and is now pursuing her Master in the same field at Baliwag University. She is an active member of the Bulacan Public Librarians Association, Inc. (BPLAI) and currently serves as its President. Before becoming the city librarian, Lim also served as an academic librarian at Bulacan State University. She replaced Mrs. Sarita Rubio when the latter was promoted to a higher position in the City Government of Meycauayan. At first, she was the sole library staff but in 2014, Ms. Rosie Inot was placed in the library as her assistant. Unfortunately, she was pulled out of the library a year later. When 2017 came, she was given another assistant, Mrs. Regilyn Mabalo, who serves the library until the present.
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| A view of the old Meycauayan Municipal Library |
When she arrived in 2014, Lim has to face some problems concerning the library's collection. The library’s books were placed outside the room, in some form of an enclosure where some books was unfortunately wet with water and has to be weeded out. Incomplete records also made it hard for her to trace whether the collection is complete given the situation she found the books were in. Fortunately, it was the most of her problem because the library was actually being renovated during that time and is poised to becoming the most elegant public library in the province of Bulacan (with the exception of course of the Bulacan Provincial Library).
The city library was renovated through the initiative of its biggest supporter, Vice Mayor Rafael “Jojo” S. Manzano. He is an interior designer and he applied his expertise in the design of the new library resulting to a very elegant library and museum. He used up the same space occupied by the old library and divided it into two to house both the library and museum. The new library’s design is sleek and conjures an image of a posh office in Makati. The museum exhibits the history and industry of each of the 26 barangays, which can be transformed to a mini-theater complete with projector, retractable white projector screen, and comfortable seats for film showing.
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| Meycauayan Mini-Heritage Museum |
The renovated library was first named as Mayor Eduardo A. Alarilla Public Library and Mini-Heritage Museum in 2014 as a tribute to the late Mayor Eduardo Alarilla but through the passage of Resolution No. 2016-051 approved on September 2, 2016, it was changed to its present name, City of Meycauayan Library and Mini-Heritage Museum.
Normally, the books that form the core of the library collection come from the National Library. Fortunately, the library was given a budget of Php 50,000.00 to purchase books in 2016 which was used by the present librarian to purchase law books to answer to the information needs of the public as well as of the officials serving the city.
The library's project includes story telling to selected daycare students of the city, and film showing to selected elementary and high school students as well as other young residents of the city who are ferried to and from the library for free. Recently, the librarian launched the project "mini-toy drive" wherein she collected and solicited new and slightly used toys from the city employees and distributed them to less fortunate kids of the city.
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| Meycauayan City Hall in Camalig housing the City of Meycauayan Library and Mini-Heritage Museum. |
As of now, the library serves as the repository of the materials for local history and culture of the city of Meycauayan as well as of the history of the whole province of Bulacan. It continues to serve as the main information center facility of the city where researchers and students could take advantage of its excellent collection, services and facilities.
To listen to the author's whole interview with Mrs. Lim, you may go to the Bulacan Provincial Library and ask the librarian there about the ORAL HISTORY OF BULACAN PUBLIC LIBRARIES PROJECT. Transcript of the whole interview is also available on site.
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