Commentary: Libraries are more than their books – just look at the Yale-NUS uproar

CNA

29-05-2025

SINGAPORE: It is an oddity in our world of fast fashion and disposables that we're reluctant to dispose of books. While I'm unsentimental about discarding old clothes and furniture, books give me pause: Those that did not move out with me still form a disorderly pile in my parents' place, eliciting occasional mild distress.
I'm clearly not alone: The active Facebook group Books Don't Throw (Singapore) is 117,000-strong and growing. Community libraries have flourished, run out of Housing Board void decks or like the Casual Poet Library, where individual shelves are rented and curated by different owners. The outrage over the ill-considered and unceremonious disposal of books from the Yale-NUS College library is more evidence of how many of us feel strongly about books.
One of my most prized possessions is a second-hand copy of How the Hills Are Distant, a poetry collection by the late pioneering Malaysian poet Wong Phui Nam, published in 1968. Mr Wong was a beloved friend and mentor, a friendship that bridged our difference in years, before he passed in 2022.
A Malaysian friend gifted me this rare book, declining to tell me how he found it. If someone tried to take it away from me, loss of limb, or even life, might ensue.
Even without a backstory, the physical book feels sacred in our age of digital reproduction.
THE VALUE OF THE SECONDHAND BOOK
Perhaps only works of art, national symbols and religious objects share this distinction.
We seem to instinctively prize the tremendous value books can bring to the next reader – and the next in its onward journey – above other forms of value generated by secondhand items. (Would a similar disposal of library chairs have triggered a similar outcry? Maybe not.)
It's important, however, to recognise that institutions do face different considerations from individuals.
NOT A ROUTINE WEEDING EXERCISE
Speaking to librarian friends in the wake of the Yale-NUS uproar, some worried that some commenters were taking a simplistic view that books should never be discarded.
Libraries around the world routinely practice weeding, to ensure their collections maintain their quality and relevance, given limited space. Damaged books are recycled. Duplicate, outdated or less-used books are withdrawn, given away and sometimes recycled.
For example, Nanyang Technological University has said that outdated or older editions of books are sent for recycling. As an author, I've made my peace with the possibility that my books will get damaged, remaindered or even destroyed.
Yet it's clear that NUS Libraries should not have treated the closure of the Yale-NUS Library as a routine weeding exercise, which they have acknowledged as an 'operational lapse'.
Although NUS Libraries rehomed 80 per cent (or 36,000 books) of the Yale-NUS collection in its other libraries, they still intended to dispose of 9,000 books, without making wider attempts to rehome these books, beyond select faculty members.
Two Yale-NUS professors have come out to say that they were not informed of supposed attempts to give away these books to faculty. That the administration did not realise that Yale-NUS students and alumni might have wanted the books speaks of a deep disconnect.
LIBRARIES ARE MORE THAN THEIR BOOKS
But the issue goes beyond rehoming these books. Libraries develop a significance beyond individual books.
One of Singapore's foremost artists, Shubigi Rao, has worked on a years-long project, Pulp, on banished and destroyed books. In her book Pulp II: A Visual Bibliography Of The Banned Book, Rao examines the 1992 destruction of the Vijecnica library of Sarajevo, deliberately targeted by Serbian nationalists.
The poet Goran Simic, interviewed by Rao, said: 'It's like they tried to kill the memory of Bosnia, of Yugoslavia, of the world.' In the midst of shells and sniper fire, Simic organised a group of friends to retrieve books and ultimately rescued over a million books. The library and its survival have become a symbol of Bosnia.
As I place my copy of Pulp II back on my shelves, I realise that all libraries, including my own, are singular acts of synchronicity. Never again will these books meet in such a constellation. They're an expression of who I am, and used to be.
Associate Professor Andrew Hui, a founding faculty member, told CNA that he recalled contributing hundreds of suggestions to build the Yale-NUS library's early collection, before a professional librarian was appointed.
These books, which have passed through many hands, connect hundreds of students and alumni across the years. With the closure of Yale-NUS, the remnants of its library have become a potent symbol of the soon-to-be-defunct institution.
Ultimately, the university's oversight – not just an ' operational lapse ' – was not recognising the symbolic significance of the library, and its meaning to the Yale-NUS community.
I turned up to the Yale-NUS library on Wednesday (May 28), the first day of the book giveaway that has been organised after the furore, as a guest of alumni – one of them, my brother.
The place was quickly packed, with book lovers stalking the shelves, trying to moderate the size of their haul. A snaking queue formed to enter the library.
Despite the events of the past 10 days, there was an air of carnival about the place. 'This is the best reunion,' my friend remarked. At the end of the day, only about 2,000 books are left for adoption according to the NUS Libraries Telegram channel.
It would have been perfect if the book giveaway had been held alongside the Yale-NUS closing reunion, which took place two weeks ago. Yet this also seems a fitting, bittersweet end for this institution, where spirited student action has led to a much better outcome.