Malaysians & Reading: The Story Continues

Picked up a free evening paper her in KLIA on my way back to the office after my duty rounds, and was pleasantly entertained by this small article written by Shahrim Tamrin of Malay Mail on the fact - "Book reading is a big hit among Malaysia" (Do click here for the full article http://www.mmail.com.my/content/29051-book-reading-big-hit-among-malaysians ).

I must say my immediate reaction was to smile as I inwardly thought, maybe I was wrong to assume that M'sians aren't a reading lot, but then the logical mind came to fore and I started analysing the article in greater detail.

One of the interesting bit posited by the Information, Communication & Culture Ministry of the fact that ahem, a whopping 38 Million people were recorded visiting libraries in the country, not limited to public libraries. While this figure is indeed staggering especially since there were more recorded visitors as compared to the number of Malaysians. This is indeed good news if it actually means people are reading more books and printed media more these days.

However, as I said earlier, statistics are often nothing more than a tabulated record of incidences. In this respect, the 38 Million people who visited the libraries may not necessarily have read anything. I do hope that a good portion (say 60%) actually read something while in those bibliotheques (this seem possible, considering there are loads of knowledge hungry students here in their pursuit of good CGPAs).

I am very glad though when it was said that we are reading on average 8 to 12 books per year, as compared to our previous country average of only 7 pages per year! So maybe, all those new bookstores, popping up here and there like grass after rain, is indicative of our increasing love for books and the developing hunger for a more low-key form of entertainment.

Good Golly Malaysia. Keep it up!

Now where do E-books fit in all this? Hmm.