Maria Cecilia Ingusan-Ayson: A
Profile
by Melchor F. Cichon,
Oct. 21, 2013
Ms.
Maria Cecilia Ingusan-Ayson, or Cecil, was born in San Rafael, Bulacan, and presently the
Associate Manager of Filipinas Heritage
Library. She is a daughter of a businessman and a retired midwife from Bulacan.
Early in her life, Cecil has shown her excellence in academics.
Cecil received the Honorable mention during elementary (grades1 to
2) and in high school (1st to 2nd year). She won prizes in spelling bees also
in elementary in their school and also in inter-school competitions. In high
school she also received a department award during graduation.
From
the site, School Librarian in Action,
I learned that Maria Cecilia Ingusan-Ayson took the Library Information Science
degree after she was informed by a
guidance counselor to consider taking an LIS degree.
And
she agreed.
Now
she has been enjoying the fruits of that decision.
When
she shifted from English to Business to Library Information Science, she
immediately became a college scholar. Not just once, but five times. And she
became a university scholar, a feat that is very hard to get in the University
of the Philippines Diliman,
Not
only that, she graduated with a cumulative General Weighted Average (GWA) of
1.64.
After
graduation in 2004, she took the Licensure Board Examination for librarians and
she landed on the 6th place in 2004.
She
also took the Career Service
Professional examination with a score of 86.76%.
This
could be one of the main reasons why she was immediately hired as a librarian by
the Filipinas Heritage Library (a Division of Ayala Foundation, Inc.) in 2005
to the present.
Before
she became the Associate Manager, Library Services, Cecil worked in various
activities in the Filipinas Heritage Library.
Here
is how she described her work when she was interviewed for an article in the School
Librarian in Action: "Our library also has a lean staff so multitasking is a
challenge. I do all sorts of library work, from Technical Services to Reference
Service, and many others, including handling of some special projects of the
library. It’s a challenge to be able to perform and accomplish all those tasks
but fulfilling as well because I’m able to learn a lot along the way."
Looking
at her bio-data, she mentioned that she served as the Project Coordinator,
website administrator and conference coordinator of the LibraryLink, a union
catalogue of Filipiniana resources hosted by the Filipinas Heritage Library, www.librarylink.org.ph, and the website
administrator and content provider since 2008 until today of the Himig
Collection website (http://www.himig.com.ph/browse/songs), the Filipino
Music collection of Filipinas Heritage Library.
On
June 9-11, 2013, Cecil received The Diane K. Foster International Travel Award
which allowed her to travel to San Diego, USA during the SLA Annual Conference.
It was sponsored by Science-Technology Division & Special Libraries Association
(SLA) - Asian Chapter.
As
a professional librarian, Cecil has served as a conference committee member and
attendee to various programs and
trainings.
But
she has been invited as speaker in
various conferences. Some of these are as follows:
“Networking FHL: Promoting Cultural Heritage Collections Through
Social Media” in the 2nd National Congress of Special Libraries of the
Philippines - Achieving a Balanced Scorecard: Best Practices in Philippine Special
Libraries (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Manila), 3 August, 2012
“Starting Up a Cost-Free Library Portal for Small-Funded
Libraries” in The Power of
Convergence: Technology and Connectivity in the 21st Century
Library & Information Services (St. Paul College of Pasig,
Pasig City), 11 November 2009.
Before ending this write-up, I would like again to quote what she
said in School Librarian in Action. It's about the qualities of
becoming a valuable librarian. She says:
"Apart from formal LIS
education, a LIS professional should also have the following skills/traits:
attention to detail, eagerness to read and learn, interpersonal and
communication skills, knowledge management skills, adaptability to new
technologies, and willingness to serve. Being a bookworm is also good because
it means you are exposed to the literary universe and could recommend a lot of
good reads or share bits of information to library users."
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