Public libraries last year welcomed 86.22 million visitors, 9.92 million (13 percent) more than in 2016, the National Central Library said on Friday.
Members borrowed 74.93 million books, 3.25 million (4.53 percent) more than in 2016, it said, adding that Taiwanese still read martial arts fiction and fantasy the most.
Central library data showed that the top three most borrowed titles last year were all written by martial arts novelist Huang Yi (黃易).
In the General category, the most borrowed book was Stanley Yen’s (嚴長壽) Finding Yourself on the World Map (在世界地圖上找到自己); in the Philosophy category, the most borrowed book was The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga; and in the Social Sciences category, the most borrowed book was Takanori Fujita’s Karyu Rojin (“Low-class Elderly People”), the library said.
The rankings in each category reflect the times and society’s focus, library Director-General Tseng shu-hsien (曾淑賢) said.
For example, continuous food safety problems over the past few years saw Tan Tun-tzu’s (譚敦慈) guide on food safety and kitchenware usage become the most borrowed book in the Applied Sciences category last year, Tseng said.
Meanwhile, Lin Yu-sheng’s (林育聖) NeEnergy: The Power of G-bye (每天來點負能量) was the most borrowed electronic book last year, she added.
Miaoli County’s Sanwan Township (三灣), Hsinchu County’s Baoshan Township (寶山) and Changhua County’s Yuanlin Township (員林), in descending order, last year borrowed the most books per person, the library said.
Sanwan is not a city, but its library organizes events to promote reading and is open year-round, and its average of 14.07 borrowed books per person comes close to Helsinki’s 15.57 books, the library said.
In terms of age differentials, 35 to 44-year-olds borrowed the most books, comprising 28.47 percent of total loans, followed by 45 to 54-year-olds, with 16.37 percent, the library said.
Meanwhile, 18 to 24-year-olds were responsible for only 4.11 percent of total loans, the library said, adding that this might be because young adults are no longer restricted to traditional, physical copies and digital books have changed their reading habits.
Women last year borrowed a total of 45.27 million books, 20 percent more than the 29.66 million books borrowed by men, the library said.
Men and women both enjoy books in the Language and Literature categories the most, it said.
However, women are more inclined to choose books in the Applied Sciences category, while men prefer books in the Arts category, it said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods