By: Kimberly Joan S. Nuque
Can’t connect to the school Wifi to research topic online? You can now search anything with your finger in StarBooks, a Stand-Alone Digital Library.
Limited resource in the school is one of the reason why students are discouraged to research their assignment, research paper and other requirements needed in the school. Having a limited resources has a huge impact on the student to excel. To provide an unlimited resource for the student, the DOST conceptualized a project named Science and Technology Academic and Research-Based Openly Operated Kiosks (StarBooks).
StarBooks is a stand-alone Information Kiosk that contains thousands of digitized Science and Technology resources in various formats such as text, audio and video placed in specially designed “pods” set in a user friendly interface with the aims to create interest in the field of Science and Technology which may increase the number of Filipinos enrolling in S&T courses; Encourage abundant and curious minds to develop new ideas—inventions and innovations; and Inspire one’s capacity for entrepreneurship and research.
On July 2, 2019 at Muñoz Central School SDS Catalina P. Paez together with City Mayor Hon. Nestor L. Alvarez and Regional Director of DOST Region III Julius Ceasar V. Sicat, 40 new StarBooks were awarded to selected public and private schools in Division of Science City of Muñoz. There were 16 unit of computers with StarBooks installations were from DOST-Region III and the other 24 unit of computer were from the LGU of Science City of Muñoz were provided to recipient schools, both public and private.
An orientation seminar was conducted after the awarding ceremony by the personnel of DOST Region III on how to use the StarBooks. All School Heads of the recipient school were present together with their ICT Coordinator.
With this project, the resource that were only available online before can now be accessed in the StarBooks offline.
In the messages that followed, it was reiterated that education and local leaders were one in making Science City of Muñoz a “smart city”. They want that through the StarBooks program, learners from all walks of life must be benefitted from the program. With one voice, they also envisioned that topnotchers in key areas such as English, Science and Math must come from among the ranks of students of the city.
They also suggested that they will spearheaded the benchmarking to smart cities around the country for them to imbibe if not replicate their successes in terms of Science and Technology.