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Books for Rent

by Kima de Jesus

Back in the 1990s, Suzette Pablo satisfied her fascination with reading by renting romance novels from a neighbour in Navotas who had an outdoor stall of Tagalog pocketbooks for rent. As a high school student, she would allot two pesos from her allowance just to borrow a book she would read for a single day.

After a decade, Pablo said she still loves reading romantic novels, but she doesn't rent books anymore. Since the price of Tagalog pocketbooks went down, rental stores in the barrio have eventually disappeared.


The borrowing of books is not really a new concept. For centuries now, libraries have provided us with a means to read books for a little cost or for free.

However, when libraries first appeared during the period before Christ, the collection of books was not valued as a society's shared treasure, but as a matter of individual wealth and prestige.

"One of the purposes of the library is really to preserve the cultural and historical records," Prof. Vyva Victoria Aguirre, dean of the University of the Philippines School of Library and Information Science, said in an interview.

But more than the preservation of paperwork, Aguirre said libraries nowadays exist to uphold our right to access to information. Especially now that the price of everything has gone up, libraries make it possible that our investment on literature do not suffer as we prioritize more our bodily needs.

The high cost of books and the distance from book-lending institutions has led people in Tanza, Navotas ten years ago to set up a system of sharing information and entertainment by way of household pocketbook rental. Though the attempt was short-lived, this barrio-based business of lending books seems to have reincarnated itself into a modern and urbane version.

 
 

 

     
 

Inside a supermall chain in Sta. Mesa, Manila is a small bookstore which offers for rental books that range from Tagalog romance novels to Danielle Steel titles. It also lends comic books for children and sells second-hand reading materials.

According to the store attendant, the target market of the bookstore is mainly children, teenagers, and young adults. Their collection comprise of fictional books and entertaining materials which cater to the enjoyment of either exhausted students or playful kids who frequent the mall.

 
 
 
 

Borrowing books require a non-refundable membership fee of 50 pesos that is good for one year. A customer can take home as much as three books per visit and should return these after a period of three days.

Rio, 16, a regular customer of the bookstore, said she has read innumerable pocketbooks already as she has been a member for about one year.

Making books more accessible to people, especially the young, is indeed a good thing as it attracts them into reading and introduces them to the world of literature.

"It's good because it gives access to reading materials for people who cannot afford to buy them," Aguirre said.

 
 
 
 

 

According to the dean of the UP SLIS, the publishing industry is greatly affected by the increase in prices of paper and transportation. Books, especially those published abroad, suffer the same fate as the rest of our commodities.

In her statement, Aguirre believes that the price of books should have gone down with the technological development that make up for easier printing and mass production.

"Well, dati mas madugo kasi typesetting yan noh. Walang computer ... the cost of printing 100 copies is very expensive (because) much of the expense is in the beginning ... formatting, typesetting, and all that," she said. But nowadays, even the author can encode a camera-ready manuscript and have it produced without a marginal cost, the dean said.

Amid the high price of books, rental shops do not only benefit by earning a lot. They also contribute to the improvement of Filipino readership and literacy, as they provide a cheap source of information as well as development of the young's thinking faculties.

Although Aguirre said that a bad book to read is better than no book at all, a dose of precaution should go together with renting pocketbooks. As much as the business has been showing good effects, book rental shops are still profit-oriented. They provide anything that their customers ask for.

"It can be a good book, it can be smut, it can be anything. It can be trash. But if people are asking for it, they'll provide it," she said.

Thus, readers should exercise their judgment in choosing what to read and evaluate the books before borrowing them.

More than immoral contents, the customers as well as book owners should watch out for harmful literature that promote hatred and bigotry, especially because of the exposure of the young.

 

 
 
 
 

 

Since the invention of the printing press diminished the monopoly of information, books have become treasures that were considered fountains of knowledge and enlightenment. Those who own copies of great works were put high in the social ladder as these persons are deemed to have the capacity equivalent to the might of the author's pen.

Many centuries have passed and books remain as powerful, but no longer concentrated in the hands of the elite few.

True enough, the power of the press is no longer limited to those who own them. Especially if these owners make available that power for rent.

 
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