This wooden sign (above) hangs on the wall in the UNIMAK library. It says:
“Tolle Lege”
(Take Up and Read)
– St. Augustine of Hippo
Confessions 8.12
UNIMAK is a Catholic university. We pray before starting meetings and many of the higher level leaders are priests. People talk about God and how He is at work in their lives with regard to the work they do here. This is, of course, quite different from my non-religious university at home. I find it refreshing – especially now, at this place, doing the work we are doing, which is so big and so complicated given the current resources here. For me, the prayer and conversations (and religions signs and pictures around campus) are a reminder for me to slow down and let things happen as they are supposed to happen here; a reminder that this is not about me.
Tolle Lege is Latin, and means take up and read. You can look up the story of tolle lege and St. Augustine for yourself, but the gist is that young Augustine was very bright, but was not living his best life. The inevitable existential crisis occurred and while praying one day he heard children singing, “Tolle lege, tolle lege.” In that moment, he thought of St. Antony (from Africa) who, when he was in a similar situation, opened his bible to a random page, read the first passage he found (Matthew 19:21), which basically says, sell all your stuff, give to the poor, and follow me. So he did, and monasticism (think monk-life) was born. Augustine followed suit and opened his bible to a random page. The passage he read (Romans 13:13-14), basically says, behave yourself; think about Jesus and not your selfish desires. At that moment, Augustine changed his ways and started living right. I guess the point of the sign hanging in the library is to remind everyone to live right. Books of all kinds can help us do that, I think, and the best place to find a book that you didn’t even know you were looking for, is the library.
I love libraries. I love to be with all the books. I love that it’s quiet and you can get lost in all the information and creativity. My favorite library is the one at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. There are lots of nooks and sunny spaces with big windows and comfortable seating where you can read or study. When I was a doc student, I spent hours there studying and finding articles I needed for my dissertation. As a K-12 teacher, I would take my classes to the school library and do my best to convince them that this could be their happy place too. Hopefully the seeds I planted eventually took root for some of my students.
I found this picture (above) on the internet over two years ago when I first identified UNIMAK as the place where I wanted to spend my sabbatical. It has been the wallpaper on my computer ever since, so it was quite an experience to finally make it to the library this week. The librarian, Leonard Massaquoia, is a typical librarian in every way. He loves the library. He wants people to use the library for all that it has to offer. He’s protective of the library and the books it houses, and he can talk library and books all day! We are going to be good friends.
We already have plans to purchase a bookshelf to add to the library just for education-related and special needs education-related books. I’m looking forward to seeing that project completed in the next month or so.
As I’m writing this post, I am thinking about the enormous contrast between the libraries where I earned my degrees and the UNIMAK library where students are earning theirs.
There are no textbooks here. There are very few books in the library related to the content that is taught here, and the ones that are here are outdated by 20 years or more. There are very few working computers (maybe five – and they are outdated). The internet is unstable. Access to peer reviewed journals is terribly limited.
Compare this to what we have in the U.S. We have textbooks (we complain because they are expensive and yes, that is a problem, but we have them!). We have thousands of books on every topic that exists. We have access to hundreds of databases that instantly give us a PDF of almost any article we want to read (going back in time to the beginning of a field of study through the current year).
While I am working here – preparing program outlines, course outlines, and course content, I am accessing what I need through my university back home. I would not be able to do this work without having that option because I cannot find what I need here in the library or online using the databases they can access. I bought a modem and I am paying monthly to keep it working so my team can have access to what we need on the internet to do this work (e.g., Ministry of Education website, shared Google Drive). Without it, we could not move forward. The realization of this is excruciating! How do you develop (as a country – as a person) without the resources that you need to do so?
I worked full-time while earning my degrees. During my PhD program, I worked full time at a school 45-minutes from home and my program was face-to-face in a town two hours away. This meant that about three days a week, I drove 45 minutes to work, worked all day, drove two hours to campus for a class, and then drove over two hours home. It was a bummer, BUT (!!!) I did not have the added obstacle of not having access to all that I needed to complete my degree.
Students here work all day too. They live far away from campus too. AND, they do not have all the resources needed to complete their degrees! They do not have funds to pay for classes so they might have to attend one semester and not attend another. They do not have reliable transportation to campus so they might have to attend one class and miss another – or walk miles to campus. They don’t have textbooks to study at home at their own pace. They do not have computers. And… they sometimes do not have food to feed themselves or their families.
And still… they are determined to complete their degrees. And they do!
Wow, this was an amazing post! Thank you for sharing so eloquently the hurdles the students face every single day. And as a retired librarian, it warms my heart that libraries are such a special place for you, and that you’ve come to enjoy this new library as well. Thank you!
Thank you for your comment, Susan!
I’m glad you are doing your sabbatical at UNIMAK. I am the fellow who brought over the library from the US when I was there in 2010. I knew it was outdated the moment we began unpacking. I explained that this was a living collection, but that in order for it to continue, new books had to come in over time. Some did, but I am sure it lagged. Electronics were always a challenge, too.
Anyway, I also commissioned the carving by a man who had lost a hand in the war. I am glad it is still displayed and that the message of St. Augustine is something that caught your attention. I hope it inspires the students, too.
Patrick – What a pleasure to hear from you! It is a huge challenge to have books shipped here. I was only able to bring a few, but I’m hoping to work with the US Embassy to send more after I’m back home.