Almost as soon as he grew big enough to walk, a boy went by himself to a local library three blocks from his house.
Every summer he would devour the titles on the summer reading list. He saw it as a kind of competition, according to his father’s recollection, and always ended up at the top of the list, tied for the lead with three older girls.
The boy’s name? Bill Gates, the founder of the software giant Microsoft, who ranked second with $61 billion in the Forbes 2012 list of the world’s wealthiest people.
It is natural that Gates, still an avid reader, later said he owed who he is today to the neighborhood library.
His case was cited by Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon on Monday when he announced a plan to build more than 500 new libraries across the city by 2030.
The completion of the scheme would increase the number of public and smaller community libraries in Seoul from the current 868 to 1,372, putting all citizens within 10 minutes’ walk of a library. Along with this plan, the mayor put forward other programs aimed at making libraries more familiar places for citizens and leading them to read more books.
His initiatives should be appreciated as addressing what Koreans need most to improve the quality of their life but have so far neglected.
They can be more valuable than any other large-scale and costly facelift projects that previous mayors, particularly Park’s immediate predecessor Oh Se-hoon, pushed for mainly to demonstrate visible achievements during their term in office.
If necessary, the central government should consider helping finance the programs to bring the public closer to libraries and books, which other metropolises and provinces are also advised to adopt.
Koreans need to find the value of reading again. Though they live in the most wired society in the world, it still requires a certain depth and width of knowledge gained through reading for them to be good citizens who could fulfill their talents and choose the right leaders.
Libraries, which allow citizens to borrow what they cannot afford to buy, could give them a lifelong experience of extensive reading. Going to a library from childhood would help them become familiar with and have respect for reading.
While one’s willingness to read is important, as Mayor Park put it, having an environment favorable for reading is also crucial.
Regretfully, Koreans can hardly be said to be enthusiastic readers. The number and services of public libraries available for them are also far below the standards in other advanced nations.
An average Seoul citizen reads 9.97 books a year, compared to more than 60 in most member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
According to figures from the city government, Seoul has 90,000 residents per public library, while the OECD average is 50,000. The number of books owned by public libraries in Seoul stands at a meager 0.81 per citizen, far below 2.9 in Japan and 2.8 in the U.S.
In addition to building more libraries, Seoul City plans to encourage its citizens to read at least 20 books a year and increase the number of books possessed by public libraries to more than two per resident.
It is also a step in the right direction to build most of the new libraries in low-income districts and foster them as centers for community activities.
Widening and facilitating access to libraries with computers connected to Internet networks could help reduce the information gap ― and economic disparity partly caused by it ― between different income and age groups.
In tough economic times, more people are inclined to use the library to get job information and knowledge needed to go through the difficulties they face. A growing number of aged people will also make more frequent use of libraries in their neighborhood, often bringing their grandchildren there.
It is hoped that someday, many Koreans with achievements to match those of Bill Gates will attribute what they are today to their local library.
Seoul City’s programs should remind us that there is no place where the public gets more for its money than at the public library.
