On Our Public Libraries

Since I don’t have the habit of rereading (rereading is underrated I know), I am a frequenter of our public libraries. I love burrowing my nose in a well-thumbed public library book – I personally think that they are like wine and their scent only gets better with time. And I like looking at the return dates sheet in a public library book and imagine what kind of man/woman cradled it in his/her hands before me. Plus carrying a public library book with you is a good conversation opener.

Hong Kong isn’t exactly famous for its appetite for reading (I don’t expect our city’s own Hot Dudes Reading community anytime soon) but its public library catalog is surprisingly up-to-date, with new books such as Haruki Murakami’s novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Grace Coddington’s memoir Grace, and David Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel The Pale King taking pride of place on the bookshelves. Hong Kong Central Library boasts an extensive collection, complete with an arts resource centre and a – gasp! – pornographic section.

Even though an up-to-date and extensive catalog can encourage the culture of reading, our public libraries are in dire need of a revamp to draw people to them in the first place. I adopt a “get in, get out” strategy in the public library – I don’t linger there after I have located the book(s) I want to borrow since it is not a well-crafted space and I think I’m not alone in this.

So if avid readers like me don’t want to linger in our public libraries, what are the chances of occasional readers visiting one when it is much more pleasurable to spend time at mega bookstores like PageOne?

You only need to juxtapose the run-of-the-mill design of Hong Kong Central Library, which is supposed to be the fairest of them all, with the breathtaking architecture of Bank of China Tower to see that the culture of reading lags far behind the culture of money. But not all hope is lost if our government can follow the examples of cities like London, New York, Bangkok and Taipei, which ignite their citizens’ appetite for books with stunningly designed public libraries. After all, money is necessary for survival – but without books, a good life is unthinkable.

“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.” - Neil Gaiman

The New York Public Library's Rose Main Reading Room

Read more on New York public libraries -

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/53rd-street-library-okay-if-you-hate-books.html