Unlike my favorite Heroes character, Hiro Nakamura, my great responsibility doesn’t come with great power. The only power that I have is my pagtataray whenever makulit students insist on photocopying visibly fragile rare books with brittle pages. You see, books deteriorate at a certain rate, depending on their chemical make-up. Books whose papers have high lignin content are acidic, causing the pages to brown and become brittle at a faster rate. There really is no way to stop this. What we can only do is to slow down this process by controlling the factors (environment, handling, storage, etc.) that contribute to their deterioration. The heat generated by photocopying is harmful to the already brittle pages of a book, not to mention the stress on the spine when it is laid down on the scanning bed. The best way to preserve these rare books is to create a service copy and place the original in (ideal) storage conditions, away from heat, light and pests.
This is my great responsibility. I am in charge of an invaluable collection in the library where I work. I am confident that my experience and training have and will place me in good stead in the performance of my duty -- but still, being in the presence of such a collection sometimes puts me in awe.
I get a certain kind of high whenever I discover some old bits of news/trivia from the collections. A couple of weeks ago as we were reorganizing the biography collection, I came upon an article about Gregoria de Jesus. Apparently, the Lakambini of the Katipunan and the Great Plebeian were at odds with each other. According to her, Apolinario Mabini was not a true hero and that “kumbaga sa handaan ay dumating sya ng luto na ang ulam at nasaing na ang kanin.” I am not a historian, but whatever they may have to say about each other, it is up to history to judge.
I also got hold of a scrapbook about the Philippine Librarians Association that was probably made after the war, but not later than 1950. In it, there were articles about the resurrection of PLAI after the war and their efforts at rebuilding. In addition there are quite a number of photos of the officers of PLAI including Gabriel A. Bernardo. To those who do not know him, he is considered as the Father of Philippine Librarianship and was instrumental in the (re)establishment of the National Library and the Main Library of UP. There are also photos of a couple of gatherings of librarians inside bullet ridden buildings, probably in the old UP building in Padre Faura or in the old Senate Building in the same area. Most of the time, we librarians take for granted the things that we have now. It is those kinds of discoveries that make me grateful for men like GAB, and thankful that I do not have to suffer the war and its consequences like our forefathers did.
In a couple of the collections there are first-hands accounts of the horrors of war. Such accounts are numerous in a lot of books, but reading some of them in actual handwritten notes gives me goose bumps and chills up my spine. Some are very graphic, like those found in the People’s Court papers. One judge said that to euphemize (or sugar-coat) the actions of the Japanese and their cohorts (like the Makapilis) will be to desecrate the honor of the people who gave up their lives for the liberty we cherish today.
I may not have great power with my “great” responsibility, but the perks of my job like the discoveries and epiphanies are more than enough for me…
…I certainly won’t mind a raise though. 
