The Department of Science and Technology and the Office of Civil Defense has forged an agreement to strengthen the distribution of digitized science and technology library-in-a-box to remote areas at the DoST Central Office in Taguig City.

Established in 2011, the Starbooks, or Science and Technology Academic and Research-Based Openly Operated Kiosks, is a stand-alone information source designed to reach those with limited or no access to S&T information resources.

It contains hundreds of thousands of S&T resources in various formats, such as text, video, and audio, placed in specially designed “pods” with a user-friendly interface.

A DoST-Science and Technology Information Institute key official said that the library also includes basic and advanced education resources, with teaching modules and support activities and the entire curriculum of the Department of Education.

“Starbooks is an idea to bridge the digital divide; we started digitizing our content 13 years ago, and so we made our library collection available to people online, but the perspective of our Management Information System head was that ‘what about those students in areas where there is no internet service?’” said DoST-STII director Richard Burgos.

“We really look forward to working with the Office of Civil Defense, because the kind of help that you will provide us could mean life or death to many of our citizens. Because we are almost at risk of national disasters in the entire world, we really need help to make our people understand what they can do before, during, and after a natural disaster,” he added.

In a statement to DAILY TRIBUNE, Burgos said that the kiosks can offer a Filipino language option, saying that the :translation of disaster-related information into the local languages is where our partnership with the OCD will kick in.”

Obligations of the DoST through DoST-STII include coordinating with the OCD for the contents of the submitted plan; being responsible for the processing of the contents submitted and the uploading in the Starbooks database; providing the S&T information contents for the Starbooks system.