The first research paper I co-authored: "Fire + water + bombs: Disaster management among academic libraries in Marawi City"

Full Title: Fire + water + bombs: Disaster management among academic libraries in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur, Philippines
Authors: Daryl L. Superio, Ethelyn M. Abaday, Mary Grace H. Oliveros, Allana S. Delgado (that's me, Malditang Librarian), Vince Ervin V. Palcullo, Joy F. Geromiano
Published in: International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 41 (Elsevier)
Citation: Superio, D. L., Abaday, E. M., Oliveros, M. G. H., Delgado, A. S., Palcullo, V. E. V., & Geromiano, J. F. (2019). Fire + water + bombs: Disaster management among academic libraries in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur, Philippines. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 41, 101311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101311
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10862/3517

Abstract: The academic libraries in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur, Philippines are vulnerable to disasters. In the last ten years, the majority of the 13 respondent libraries have sustained at least one disaster that may have been caused by civil unrest, war or terrorism, flood, earthquake, or fire. The majority were unprepared to face such disasters, may it be small-scale or catastrophic, and only one library has a disaster management plan. The lack of significant holdings of rare books, shortage of financial resources, no perceived risk, and the unavailability of staff to write a disaster management plan, are the reasons why most libraries do not have a plan. Moreover, the majority lacked staff that has undergone training in disaster preparedness and management. On the other hand, all of the libraries have disaster management practices that although not enough, will still enable them to lessen the effects of the disaster and save their library and parts of their collection when necessary. The respondents identified management support as an essential factor in their success in disaster management. The results of the study provide valuable information on the current state of the libraries in the Philippines with regards to disaster preparedness and management. Therefore, it is an essential addition to the literature on disaster management in the Philippines, which is very scarce as of the moment.

If you are interested in this paper, you can download it through ResearchGate [link].

This paper was already published online last September, I already posted about it on the Facebook page but forgot to write about it here on the blog.

The brain behind it is Mr Daryl Superio so thanks to him for including me in this project. He is always encouraging his students (us) to pursue research and if we can, try to publish in international journals. He has authored and co-authored several papers on librarianship.

This paper had quite a long journey. My contribution was writing some text in the introduction. It took many months, rejections, and edits before final publishing. I learned that publishing research takes a lot of time and patience! However, that paid off because we were able to publish it in an Elsevier journal which is quite a big name in academic research publishing.

Anyway, this made me more interested in research though it might take me a long time to actually do one - I'm still burned out from my thesis for grad school. I have many ideas for possible research topics which I want to explore. Maybe I will also try submitting papers to research journals in the future!