AI-assisted cataloging
RICA
Rizal Library Intelligent Cataloging Assistant: an evidence-centered approach to MARC 21 and metadata generation in which AI proposes and catalogers decide.
Librarian · Educator · Library technology
Pia
Building at the point where libraries, learning and technology meet.
A Filipino librarian whose career has moved across academic librarianship, professional education, regional library technology, operations leadership, knowledge organization and responsible AI for libraries.
LibrarianshipEducationLibrary systemsKnowledge organizationResponsible AI
About Pia
A career shaped by libraries—and by the systems that make them work.
Pia is a librarian, educator and library-technology professional whose work has spanned the Philippines and Singapore. Her career has included academic teaching, library management, professional-learning support, commercial library technology, regional operations and hands-on technical services.
Before generative AI became part of her work, she had already spent years at the intersection of librarianship and technology: managing READ@Academy at the Academy of Singapore Teachers, working with TLC Carl East and The Library Corporation, teaching at the University of the Philippines School of Library and Information Studies, and facilitating regional library leadership development through INELI-ASEAN.
Today, as Cataloging Section Head at the Rizal Library, Ateneo de Manila University, that experience has converged with cataloging, metadata, authority work, classification and library-system migration. The result is a new chapter in which Pia is not only using library systems, but increasingly designing tools around the realities of librarians' work.
Her approach is deliberately human-centered: technology should strengthen professional judgment, not obscure it; evidence should remain visible; provenance should be respected; and the people who inherit a system should be able to understand what came before them.
“AI assists. Catalogers decide.”
Career journey
From library management to regional technology leadership—and back to the catalog.
Current chapter
Cataloging Section Head, Rizal Library
Leads cataloging work at Ateneo de Manila University's Rizal Library while exploring responsible AI, metadata quality, Filipiniana classification, evidence-based cataloging assistance and future-ready library workflows.
Jul 2017–Jan 2018
Learning Facilitator, INELI-ASEAN
Supported emerging library innovators through the International Network of Emerging Library Innovators–ASEAN, a three-year National Library of the Philippines project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
2014–2017
Graduate Certificate in Distance Education
Completed the Graduate Certificate in Distance Education at the University of the Philippines Open University, strengthening the learning-design side of a career already combining libraries, technology and education.
2014–2016
Senior Lecturer, UP School of Library and Information Studies
Taught future information professionals, advised research, and explored e-learning and web-based library resources while continuing her work in the library-technology sector.
Library technology
Director of Asia Operations, TLC Carl East · The Library Corporation
Led regional operations for TLC Carl East · The Library Corporation, bringing a provider-side perspective to library automation, implementation, support and service across Asia.
Singapore
Manager, READ@Academy
Managed the professional-learning library of the Academy of Singapore Teachers, Ministry of Education—working where library service, teacher development and educational resources meet.
Current work
Technology designed from inside librarianship.
Knowledge organization
PMMT 2.0
An exploration of how contemporary AI can assist the preservation and future development of a Philippine multilingual thesaurus while respecting institutional provenance and prior intellectual work.
AXIS
Authority eXtraction and Indexing System: a developing AI-assisted indexing workflow for digitized clippings, keeping source evidence and librarian review at the center.
Independent work
Desiderata Solutions
A space for exploring the things libraries wish they had: practical technology projects grounded in library work, preservation, metadata and responsible experimentation.
Preservation
Infolib restoration
Preserving, documenting and testing Gerry O. Laroza's legacy library automation work while keeping authorship and provenance clear.
Professional throughline
Libraries first
Whether the tool is an ILS, a thesaurus, an AI model or an old desktop application, the question remains the same: does it help libraries serve people and preserve knowledge responsibly?
Education & learning
A librarian who kept returning to the learner's side of the desk.
Master of Library and Information ScienceProfessional foundation in librarianship, information organization and library services.
Graduate Certificate in Distance EducationUniversity of the Philippines Open University · 2014–2017
Philosophy
The system should remember that librarianship comes first.
Pia's work favors evidence over plausibility, provenance over convenience, and professional responsibility over automation for its own sake. A machine-generated answer is useful only when a librarian can inspect, challenge and correct it.
The same instinct appears in preservation and continuity work: keep the original, document decisions, protect production systems, and build so another person can understand what was done. Technology should not become a black box that an institution can no longer own.