Library Project

My library project of visiting all 56 libraries in the Taipei Public Library system is on schedule. As of today I have visited 33 so far. It has been a great project for me, I get out to see more than just the tourist sights in Taipei.

One aspect has been a learning experience, just because you have a list of addresses doesn't mean you can find each library. I have used:

2 maps of Taipei in English
1 street mapbook of Taipei in Chinese
the Taipei MRT maps(super)
google maps in English
google maps in Chinese
the address list in Chinese from the Taipei Public Library
the address list in English from the Taipei Public Library
the Perapera Chinese to English translation app on Mozilla

each source has been helpful for one library or another and none of the resources has been complete(or without mistakes). It's been like a puzzle putting information from each source into a plan to find the next library.

All of the libraries have been busy when I get there. Taipei is a very literate place. Some of the libraries are actually "reading rooms", just a large air-conditioned room with large work tables. But these places are packed with students studying, they probably don't have AC at home. (Here at the end of April the temperature has already 34C(93.2F))

By far the most interesting library so far has been the QiMing, the library for the visually impaired.

This library had a large collection of books on tape and large Chinese print and magnifying glasses. But how do they use braille for Chinese characters? Usually in the West, braille is indentations on thick paper(actually outdentations). Chinese characters are too complicated for indents/outdents to be read with fingertips. In the versions of braille for Chinese the characters are not encoded, only the pronunciation(sound and tone) is encoded in the outdentations.

This is like reading Chinese using only pinyin, the whole problem of homophones

http://tainanchineseclass.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-is-chinese-hard.html

is just ignored. Wow, I didn't think this was possible.

For me the English books are great, at each library I get to look over a couple shelves of books and it keeps me busy. In Taiwan, there are English language bookstores but I would estimate that a new book costs twice as much in Taiwan as it would in US. Similarly Amazon delivers books in Taiwan but the cost is also double. Luckily the English books in the Taipei Public Library are classified with the Dewey Decimal system(an old friend).

Retirement means time, time is the one thing that we all can't increase.