A book borrower be

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be"


While Polonius'advice to his son is all very well when it comes to money matters, when it comes to things like novels and magazines, I think borrowing is wonderful - you get to read the material, without paying for it, and afterwards, you're not burdened with having to store a book or a magazine.


I haven't seen the tops of some of my tables because they're piled high with books bought over the years, so I know what I'm talking about. To try to keep some form of order, I try to give away my books after I've read them, unless they are useful references, but it's a slow way to get rid of stuff, and I think nothing beats the library. (It also is a waste for a book to only have one reader.)


Unlike book shops, the library catalogue is available online, for us to see if they have the book, whether it's being borrowed currently, and where it can be found. A reservation service ($1.55 a book) is available, with an option to pick up the book at a branch convenient for you. Great if the book is at Woodlands, and you live in Marine Parade, say, as it is cheaper than going all the way there t0 fetch it yourself.


Happily, the library collection contains most of the books I want to read - the only question is whether the book in question is being borrowed by someone else, and unavailable, but it's a bearable pain compared with stumping out an average of $18 for a paperback novel and more for a non-fiction book.


There's even more reason to use the library when it comes to foreign magazines. Actually buying them from the shops every month costs about $10 to $15 each time, and they are seldom worth it anyway. I like reading Popular Photography and Imaging, and I even bought one issue (the November one that promised a preview of the next year's cameras), but in all honesty, the mag isn't magic. While the articles may inspire you to try a new technique, it's really just the first step, hardly a complete how-to guide, and you have to do lots more experimenting or research before you start coming to grips with anything.


The actual borrowing and returning is also very easy. Just use your IC and stick it in a machine, which guides you through the borrowing process. Returning is even easier, as you can dump the books or magazines at any 24-hour return bin, regardless of the library branch it came from originally.

All this is due to the magic of RFID technology - electronic barcodes used in supply chain management, and what is a library but a circular supply chain? The system clocks the books in and out automatically, allowing us to borrow right away when we return stuff. Books that have been wrongly shelved are not lost forever, but can actually be located.

The National Library Board was the first library in the world to adopt the technology. Cool, huh?


Another bit of good news is that, as of April 1, renewing our books will be free (no fooling).


And if you want to give something back to the library, you can donate your fiction books, which will be "released" in hotspots like taxis, Cafe Galilee and some Cartel branches, for anyone to read, and either keep, or re-release themselves. Among other things, I tossed my copy of Da Vinci Code in the doonation bin - I thought it was an awful piece of writing, and not something I would recommend to my friends, but it comforts me that someone who might want to read the novel won't have to shell out cash for the privilege.