A new service that increases the availability of e-books at public libraries has led to a nearly 80 percent increase in borrowing in the first month since it was implemented, the Ministry of Culture said yesterday.
From last month, people are allowed to borrow 10 e-books from public libraries at a time, and the same e-book can be lent to an unlimited number of readers.
Prior to the new service, the number of times each public library could lend an e-book per month was limited and there was a limit on how many times the same e-book could be lent at once.
Photo courtesy of the Keelung City Government
The ministry allocated NT$100 million (US$3.1 million) for the first year of the new service, with 20 administrative regions participating.
Every time an e-book is borrowed, the publisher and author are paid a fixed amount, creating a positive cycle whereby reading and creating reinforce each other, it said.
The publishing industry has suffered greatly due to the digitalization trend, so “the government should do something” to preserve the cultural value of publishing, Minister of Culture Shih Che (史哲) said.
In the program’s first month, e-book borrowing increased more than 80 percent in Yilan, Nantou, Taitung, Penghu and Kinmen counties, as well as in Keelung and Chiayi City, the ministry said.
The five special municipalities in the program — excluding Taipei, which did not join — on average had a more than 50 percent rise in e-book borrowing, it said.
It is normal for activity to rise immediately after a policy is launched, but the data indicate that the market for digital reading has the potential to grow, Shih said.
The number of print books borrowed from public libraries nationwide last year was 94.17 million, compared with 9.33 million e-books, the ministry said.
E-book use and the output of digital publishing have the potential to grow substantially, it said.
The key to stimulating interest in reading lies in identifying readers’ needs, the ministry said, adding that publishers and e-book platforms have been striving to provide more diverse content since the new service was launched.
The Taiwan Cloud Library has an online book exhibition featuring fiction, Taipei-based multimedia publisher HyRead has an exhibition featuring detective novels and iRead eBooks has invited professionals to make book recommendations related to their expertise, the ministry said.
The novel Port of Lies (八尺門的辯護人), which was adapted for TV by Netflix, was the most borrowed e-book across platforms last month, it said.
In addition to expanding its e-book services, the ministry also launched a program to ensure that the procurement prices public libraries pay for books are at least 70 percent of the list price to prevent price-cutting in the sector, it said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its