QUEZON CITY, Philippines (Mar 2026) — Academic journals have a reputation for being hard to find and harder to access. Ateneo de Manila University is doing something about that, and the solution is inside a mall.
The university has donated a curated collection of its peer-reviewed journals to the Book Nook at SM North EDSA, a free community reading space open to anyone who walks in. Close to a hundred journal copies were turned over, covering issues from 2019 to 2025 across five of Ateneo’s signature publications.
The titles span a wide range of disciplines: Perspectives in the Arts and Humanities, Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture, Social Transformations: Journal of the Global South, Journal of Management for Global Sustainability, and Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints. Topics range from precolonial Philippine history and culture to modern technology and interdisciplinary studies.
The idea is straightforward: bring serious academic work out of university libraries and into spaces where everyday readers can stumble upon it.
What Book Nook is
Book Nook is a community reading initiative founded by Singapore-based architect Shereen Sy that turns underused mall spaces into open, free-to-use libraries. It currently operates three locations in Metro Manila — at SM Podium, SM Aura Premier, and SM North EDSA — each designed as a relaxed, drop-in space where visitors can read, share, and donate books.
The addition of Ateneo’s journals brings peer-reviewed academic resources into that casual, welcoming environment for the first time, lowering the barrier between scholarly research and the general public.
For more information about Ateneo’s research and publications, visit archium.ateneo.edu.
