Science Librarianship in Colonial Philippines: Mary Polk and the Philippine Bureau of Science Library, 1903-1924

ABSTRACT

The Spanish-American War of 1898 ushered in decades of American rule in the Philippines. American colonial administrators established a bureaucracy that included the Bureau of Government Laboratories, later known as the Bureau of Science, which would serve as a central laboratory and also conduct research in the biological sciences, chemical sciences, ethnology, and more. A crucial component of the work of the Bureau was its library, which was headed from 1903 to 1924 by Mary Polk. This article is a study of Polk, the environment in which she worked, and her lasting impact on Philippine librarianship.

KEYWORDS:

• Library history
• Mary Polk
• Philippine Bureau of Science

Notes

1. This was the Second Philippine Commission. The First Philippine Commission only had “advisory and investigative responsibilities” and was led by Jacob Gould Schurman, president of Cornell University (Kramer 2006, 112). When the Taft Commission assumed power, the U.S. Army was still engaged in operations against Filipino nationalists, who wanted the Philippines to be independent rather than a part of another foreign power. This Philippine-American War lasted officially until July 4, 1902 (Kramer 2006).

2. During this time, Polk also taught at a high school in the city of Haywards, but she apparently had to leave that position because the state of California did not recognize her Indiana University degree as a suitable qualification for teaching (Polk 1894).

3. Upleger came to the Philippines from the University of Oregon, where she “strongly championed the German cause before America’s entrance into the war and continued … in some cases, it was alleged by the students, discouraging enlistment in the American army” (Sheldon 1940, 198).

4. According to the university catalog for 1916-1917, “[t]he first two years of the course will lead to the degree of Bachelor of Arts; four years to the degree of Bachelor of Science in Library Science.” This reflects the European model, which the university soon dropped for the American model. By the 1921-1922 academic year, the first two years would lead to an Associate in Arts (Board of Educational Survey 1925; University of the Philippines 1917, 82, 1921).

5. Nicetas Del Mundo apparently was married that year and appears in rosters from 1917 on as Nicetas M. Santiago.

6. Emma O. Elmer was married to Adolph D. E. Elmer who worked at the Bureau of Science from 1903 to 1905. Afterward, A. D. E. Elmer became a private botanical collector. The couple would be interned by the Japanese during World War II, and A. D. E. Elmer would die in 1942 in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp (Copeland 1949; Stevens 1946).