On the
Value of Books, Magazines, Etc.
By Apolinario Villalobos
I just cannot understand how some people
can fail to appreciate the value of books, magazines, etc. just because they
are two, three or more years old. For them such materials are already outdated,
so they do not deserve appreciation. The fact is, these materials, especially
books can be updated but they retain their historical usefulness, hence, never
outdated. Books are updated based on the old editions, and this is necessary,
as some authors are found to bungle or distort facts, especially, on political
issues. One example here is about the first Mass held in the Philippines,
whether it was at Massao in Butuan or Limasawa Island in Leyte. The author of
the old Philippine history book contended that it was held in Limasawa when his
book was published during the administration of Marcos. There was a popular
notion that it was done to please the First Lady who is from Leyte. When Marcos
was ousted, those who were protesting in silence, took courage and became more
vocal about the issue.
Even for scientific and technical books that
are supposed to be updated regularly due to the fast turnover of new ideas and
discoveries, there is still a need to maintain old editions so that basic
information will always be on hand, in case of verification.
The notion that hard copies of books are no
longer necessary with the onset of advance technology, is wrong. What the
cyberspace keeps in its archives are actually digitized old books and their new
editions if there are, for easy reference. Important issues here are the
convenience and affordability of access, as not everybody can afford the
installation of computers at home or afford the expense for browsing in
internet cafes. On the other hand, there are so-called e-books, but such are
just “versions” of printed ones. In fact, some authors venture into e-book
publication to sell their books on-line which is easier, but still print them
later, using earnings money from the viewers of their e-books.
While before, the book was considered as a
precious commodity for the acquisition of knowledge, today, book publication is
viewed as a very profitable business venture. This is the reason why the
questionable Philippine educational system has allowed the “conversion” of text
books into workbooks with the insertion of questions and portions for answers
at the end of each chapter. This wicked practice of the educational
institutions, including government agencies, in connivance with the unscrupulous
publishers and agents has made many people shamefully rich on one end, while on
the other end, parents and students suffer. In their haste for printing, some
books even come off the press with so many errors. The practice no longer made
possible the passing on of old books to younger members of the family, as
buying new sets with unanswered questions at the end of chapters, has become
necessary.
People love trivia. But where do all the
information come from? – old books and magazines! Those found in the internet
are the upload, patiently done by website owners that earn through ads squeezed
in available spaces of their site’s pages, or number of viewers they generate. This is
how servers and website owners in the cyberspace earn. Netizens thought that
they owe a lot to them, thinking that they are the originators of the information,
when all these website owners do is upload information. On the other hand, the
servers only provide space for these websites from which they earn enormous
income.
I have no quarrel with the servers and
website owners, but my effort here is directed at how people have been misled
by thinking that because of the computers, hard copies of reading materials
have become obsolete or on a kindlier view, unreliable.
Before the onset of the internet, students
had no choice but to diligently turn the pages of books to cull the needed
information for their theses. They were forced to make summaries or condense
sourced materials. But because of the advance technology, some of them just
“copy” and “paste” pages from sources in the internet, make minimal revisions,
by deleting sentences and paragraphs, then, collate them into a “thesis”. That
is the ongoing sad reality.
When I did a job on the side, editing theses
of students from a reputable university, I discovered one time, that four drafts
were identical word for word – with the same source in the internet. Two other
students tried their best to be authentic by jumbling the sequence of
paragraphs that they copied and collated. And there’s the story shared by a
librarian about two similar theses, but with submission dates of more than ten
years apart! They were discovered later
when a researcher took note of the similarity and called the librarian’s
attention about it. And, there’s a classic story of how the whole content of a
thesis reference was peeled off from its cover by a student researcher, and who
inserted folded newspapers, afterwards, as replacement to make the reference
material look intact when it was returned to the librarian who did not bother
to check.
I am not saying that we fill whatever space
we have at home and offices with books and magazines and hold on to them till
time eternal. What I am trying to share
is the restraint that we should observe in disposing books and other reading
materials that have outlived their immediate usefulness. What we do not need
can be shared, instead of dumping them in garbage bins. What shocked me was
when I found two copies of pocket edition of Bible in a box of junk, and worse,
a copy of Koran in another junk shop! I found my rare copies of biography of
Queen Victoria, “Pepe En Pilar”, and “Codigo Penal” printed in 1870, in a pile
of junks sold on a sidewalk.
As a high school and college student in Notre
Dame of Tacurong, a parochial school in the far southern province of Sultan
Kudarat in Mindanao, I had a grand time poring over the pages of National
Geographic, Reader’s Digest, and Encyclopedias in our library, all old
editions, solicited by Oblate priests in the United States. Some of them were
even dated as early as 1950’s, especially, the Reader’s Digest and National
Geographic, but I still enjoyed reading them. We were lucky, as our
bespectacled librarian, Leonardo Ninte and his student assistants, carefully,
rebound the reading materials, to make them endure regular handling. A good
number of shelves in the library were filled with donated books, with only very
few important current editions purchased due to the scant fund of the school.
Those “outdated” materials helped me a lot in developing my love for reading.
Accordingly, if some people who are in charge of libraries today will nurture
an attitude of abhorrence to old books, they will eventually deny others the
opportunity to earn knowledge from books, be they old or new.
The fast advancing technology on
information is proving its great help to mankind. But we should understand that
technology in whatever form has limitations. The gadgets we see now as
“repository” of information, still need to be fed with basic information by man
as basis for their mechanical “intelligent” subsequent actions. Most
importantly, what are fed to these machines come from the human brain. These invented
and fabricated machines come about as forms of convenience that man seeks
tirelessly for his comfort. Man started with barks, leaves, rocks and even pot
shards in recording events long time ago. What resulted into modern day codices
– books, should therefore be given due respect and importance for all their
worth which is fathomless. To tip the balance in favor of these machines as
regards the perception on the value of books, therefore, is not fair.
