ENGAGING COMMUNITIES THROUGH INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY:  THE PUBLIC LIBRARY EXPERIENCE

Bernardita Gwynne  P. Bondoc,

ENGAGING COMMUNITIES THROUGH INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY: THE PUBLIC LIBRARY EXPERIENCE

Abstrak:

Since the birth of the Internet or the “global village”, various industries have experienced growth and development. Information technology (IT) which is a highly technical course now bridges the gap on enabling “user friendly” tools or platforms and is now called Information and Communications Technology (ICT). ICT is not limited to just Internet applications such as e-mail and surfing the Internet. It is beyond these applications, some examples are “social networks”, blogs, e-learning, e-comerce and even virtual media (gaming) are considered to be ICT in nature because of the platform utilized. In 2008 alone, the Philippines had a 14.6% Internet growth rate comprising 14 million of the population. Frequency of using the internet is on a daily basis. In fact ICT has become a major component of business expenditure on research and development. The proposed study is action-research in nature, which is defined as a collaborative activity among individuals working with others in teams or communities of practice searching for solutions to everyday, real problems.