https://www.esquiremag.ph/money/industry/national-book-store-updates-2023-a00289-20230810-lfrm?
The company has gone through multiple upheavals—wars, revolutions, natural disasters, and changes in customer behaviors, among many other challenges—but perhaps none tested the mettle of the 80-plus-year-old company more than the pandemic. “It was devastating,” Adrian Ramos, current president of National Book Store tells Esquire Philippines during that period. “We were hit on multiple fronts.”
HAHAHAHAHA! It's the closest thing we probably have to a functioning library system. And to "permanently check-out" something, we have to buy it.