Today's library, tomorrow's 'googlary'?

No doubt is the internet more convenient; however, I feel that for different types of text, they should be presented in different ways.

At the click of a button, we can find the information we are looking for on the web without tediously going through stacks of books to find the one we need, moreover it sometimes may not provide us with the information we want. On the website we found through googling, we just need to press “Ctrl + F” to look for the keyword without flipping pages frantically searching for the section where the theory is described. Especially when time is such a precious asset in today’s fast paced society, we need to maximize it as much as possible in order to prepare for the uncertain future. Since informative books mostly only provide part of the information required by the researcher, it should be digitalized for ease of readers.

For storybooks however, which are often long and detailed, it would be very tiring to stare at a screen reading 400 pages of text. Not only will the light from the screen tire your eyes, sitting at the same position for such a long time, not being able to change or you wouldn’t be able to read off the screen is very uncomfortable. And slowly, your posture will worsen as it is horribly tiresome to sit up straight for so long; after reading your third book, you would have become a hunchback. You can read books anywhere and find the most comfortable way to read it whether it is while lying down or walking, and if that relaxing position is giving you cramps, you could always change yet still be able to read your book.

A book is also very easy to carry around you, on the bus or on the train, or even while waiting to see the doctor, a book is the perfect companion. It doesn’t require you to wait five minutes for the computer to start up then open the file, and read it while holding that heavy laptop. This convenience is incomparable, though it might waste some trees but using a computer to read also requires much electricity which also would require burning of fossil fuels increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The heat from the computer would also contribute to global warming, but a book still can be donated to less fortunate societies or even be recycled.

All in all, what text needs to be digitalized and what are pointless to make into a cyber text has to be determined or else some efforts would be wasted on doing so for some types of books.

A gift of a programme

Being in the Gifted Education Programme (GEP), I have realised the difference in the curriculum between the GEP and that of the mainstream. Many of the lessons are indeed a little harder and in secondary school the difference becomes much wider. However, knowing my friends, they wouldn't go up to a neighbourhood school guy and go "HAH! I'm in Hwa Chong leh!" In fact, on the contrary, I feel that many of us think that talking to a neighbourhood school student is difficult, being afraid that they would have the impression that we are being proud and cocky in any way. The problem of elitism is never a one-sided problem, not just that elites become elitist, also non-elites becomes anti-elites, and in addition this creates much stereotype resulting in miscommunication.

I do agree that it is a good programme but is intellectual elites what the students themselves want to be? Not only is the stress very high, the time left is extremely little. Sometimes in the shopping centre, I see groups of students hanging out together while I’m just going home alone. I do not think that I want to waste my youth not doing the things I will get even less time to do when I grow up. We only have such limited time to enjoy our youth. Moreover, our goal in the future also may not be to climb the career ladder, we could just be contented to be an employee in a well-to-do company. We must not always think about the future and look at the present and take time to enjoy it. If never now, then when? After retirement, there would be barely any youth in us left to do those kind of highly straining activities.

Do we have to sacrifice individual wants for the better of the community? It is difficult to find a balance, it would be best if what the individual wants is for the better of the community. Yet, this isn’t the realistic situation.