On Libraries Going Digital

I am re-posting an opinionated comment by Rey Llenor on a post I did last 1 December 2010 on Reading as a RIGHT. I chose to respond but will wait for next year to post it up in the blog. For the meantime, read on and do comment if the spirit prompts you to!

Rey Llonor
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 12:43:00 AM

I love libraries as much as I love reading. But, library for me is not just an enclave of reading materials. More so, reading is no longer a monopoly of print materials. You can do the same reading sense with the use of modern gadgets.

For me, the primary function of a library is an information center. What if, you could get the information you need at the comfort of your home? Years ago, it's possible if you can afford to buy an Encyclopaedia Britannica worth thousands of pesos. I myself dreamed of having a set in our home. Unfortunately, we couldn't afford to have even the cheapest one (a segunda-mano). I believed I'm not the only one who grew up without an encyclopedia at home.

But, time has changed. When I was tasked to handle Britannica Online division here in the Philippines, I introduced the Britannica Online Virtual Library Card (vCard). In itself a complete library with five major Britannica references, 840 e-Journals and e-Magazines, over 6,500 eBooks and Original Source documents, over 6,800 downloadable videos and animations and more at price that even an ordinary labourer can afford to pay for his family use (actually it cost just the same a two McDonald's meals),

So who said that we need to have "functional libraries" when we can afford to have one with the vCard?

In fact, my advocacy is against print materials. Imagine if you are to give a piece of book in every Filipino student of 17 million, how many trees are you going to cut down to create papers? For every ton of paper, you need to cut down 17 trees! We're experiencing the impact of it with the flooding of our country.

I maybe wrong with this thinking for print materials. But let's face it, an iPad or Kindle could handle thousands of ebooks or digital references which could save thousands of trees against printed ones. God bless us all!