PCAARRD, Thanks For Your eLibrary – Here’s An Even Better Idea!

In PCAARRD’s Facebook sharing accompanied by the image above (essentially), good news: “Over 7,000 Agriculture, Aquatic, and Natural Resources… publications can now be accessed in the PCAARRD eLibrary for FREE!”

Two links: “Visit our website: https://elibrary.pcaarrd.dost.gov.ph/slims/” and “How to use PCAARRD eLibrary: https://bit.ly/HowToPCAARRDeLib” and then these links:

“Ask a librarian”
“Suggest a book”
“List of newly acquired materials”
and
“Recent List.”
“Material Search Filters.”

Your eLibrary is a good idea, but I get confused. Many links to mind! Which all means I have to spend at least 10 minutes clicking those links and maybe finding what interests me.

I am an alumnus of UP Los Baños and I worked for PCAARRD years ago – so I have a good idea what your eLibrary offers. What happens to an eKnowledge searcher who has no idea?

Okay, I’m watching your automatic-continuous display of covers:
Organic Agriculture, Gardening Using EPP Technology, Tilapia Culture, Rubber And Cacao, Vegetable Gardening, Mangrove Crab, Citrus Fiesta…

I click Organic Agriculture and nothing happens!

(I went back to the website and clicked again – nothing again.)

Anyway, you have a good list of topics:

Agri-Aqua Systems
Agricultural Machineries
Agricultural Resource Management
Agriculture
Biology
Communications
Crops
Ecology
Education
Environmental Science
Fisheries
Forestry
Genetics
Health and Wellness
Library and Information Science
Livelihood
Livestock
Marine Aquatic
Nutrition
Ornamental plants
Science and Technology
Social Sciences
Socio-Economics
Soil Resources
Technology Transfer
Veterinary Medicine
Water Resources
Wildlife

I try to register – I get lost. Anyway, it tells me that you are first interested in counting the number of those who use your website and not whether you are being of good service to them or not. It’s been about 20 minutes and your eLibrary is notmaking things easy for me to search for the eKnowledge that I am interested in.

If I may suggest: PCAARRD should instead build an eKnowledgeBank that can answer any blind question about the latest knowledge and/or conjectures in Agriculture, Aquaculture, and Natural Resources Research and Development, which are its areas of expertise. PCAARRD is almost 50 years old – half a century – and should know much!

If your eLibrary were much more user-friendly, for instance, I visit your website and just type these words:

goat raising,
Asingan,
source of stocks,
capital needed,
people with experience in or near Asingan,
market prospects,

and your eLibrary would be giving me instant replies on each of those queries!

(Your eLibrary would know that “Asingan” is in Pangasinan. And it would tell me about the market prospects as of such & such dates.)

And since I am into communication for development, I would also be interested in asking your eLibrary such questions as:

ü most common pitfalls in goat raising
ümost successful provinces in goat raising
ümost important consideration in goat raising.

Oh, and by the way, PCAARRD, aren’t your publications all technical? Have pity on the non-technical people and beforehand“translate” the science into common language, if not common knowledge.

You must assume that the ones visiting your eLibrary know little science or almost none – so help them!@517