July 06, 2024

Book : The Nerd Talk - About Library


Your Library, My Library


I found WorldCat, a global database of library materials. 


I would type in a specific book I want to find and the catalog will show you which library "near you" got the book you can borrow. Unfortunately, most books in Malaysia do not carry the books that I'm searching for. I'm saddened by the realization of the limited free resources from our local libraries. Now that I can search the books I want online, I don't have to waste my time visiting all our local libraries just to see whether they have the books. 


I'm curious to read non-fiction by Hermann Hesse or The Red Book by Carl Jung or classic literature by Kobo Abe or Yukio Mishima. These are rare and expensive books that I might not want to keep, but still curious to read - and they are available in Singapore's National Library, so why can't we at least have a copy too :F

Also, Singapore and Australia have an impressive library listing (based on the search), so I might need to relocate. 


Then, yesterday I went to Kino and they are selling Penguin Modern Classics from Kobo Abe to Franz Kafka, from Albert Camus to Yukio Mishima and Henry Miller, from Nabokov to Jean-Paul Sartre. Our library should buy the whole Penguin Modern Classics, at least one book each, because if it is not from classic literature then how would we learn? They are important resources. A good library should have all the classic literature because only the important ones survive the time. If the next generation doesn't read these books, they will miss out huge chance to learn about the past. I mean if they can have all the mangas in the KL library, then why can't they have at least a good amount of the world's classic literature? 


I don't want to own the whole set, I'm just curious to read them and perhaps just keep one or two that I like. So we need to have a good library:




If rich people could buy great literature and donate it to our libraries, that would be amazing. 


Imagine these people spend around RM 1,000 each for the Penguin Modern Classics.

  • The book is around RM 65 each, we might get around 15 copies. 
  • There are around 1000 books by Penguin Modern Classics.
  • We might need around 67 donators
  • That's probably around RM 65k (if the gov wants to subsidize) 

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