Perhaps you might pass off an article on the closing of certain Community Children Libraries (CCL) as trivial news which does not matter.
But read on, I urge you, read on.
I am referring to the recent news regarding some parents in Bukit Timah whose efforts to keep one such library in Toh Yi Drive open, have paid off, if only momentarily. I quote from The Straits Times:
"After putting together two petitions and writing to the press last week, they
won a promise from Holland-Bukit Timah GRC MP Yu-Foo Yee Shoon that it will stay open - but only until March next year."
This course of action is, I persnally feel, of a particularly bittersweet nature. Oh, we understand the importance of such libraries, hence we shall delay their closure by another year.
How very ambiguous and unsatisfying.
Apparently, the reason behind these libraries' imminent closure is, I quote again:
"-a declining number of visitors and book loans in the last six years."
Basically, these libraries are losing out to the newer, bigger regional libraries. The general trend lately has been to construct modern, multi-story libraries with wireless capabilities, enlarged capacities, all that jazz. It is of no surprise that these multi-plexes we call "libraries" appear more attractive to the general public.
Yet, the issue here lies not in making the CCLs as popular as the colossal regional libraries. It does not rest on the fact that these CCLs are becoming lonelier places. The crux of the issue lies not in the phasing out of these CCLs.
Rather, the matter with closing these libraries is that of the children who actually visit them.
Let us explore this in further detail.
The mammoth libraries and the comparably shabbier CCL, though similar in the sense that both provide reading material for the general public, differ in another. The former is a contemporary hub of knowledge, boasting futuristic services hip and cool enough to draw Singapore's literate crowds.
The latter is, bluntly speaking, where children living nearby visit, due to its convenience.
Perhaps a child would have had the embers of his innate love for reading ignited from a trip to these libraries. So what if their facilities are out-dated? They have accessibility, and as long as they have that, they have served their purpose well.
Granted, from a pragmatic point of view, these CCLs are not very cost-efficient. With dwindling loan rates and few visitors, the practical and straightforward thing to do would be to end their services.
But were they not designed in the first place, for children as gateways to more magical worlds? Convenient gateways, more importantly. One young child might be inspired all because he was bored one day and decided to visit the library downstairs.
Have you heard the story of a boy throwing starfish stranded on the shore back into the ocean?
Perhaps keeping these libraries open might not matter much to all the other people, but it matters to that one child.
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