According
to the dean of the UP SLIS, the publishing industry is greatly affected
by the increase in prices of paper and transportation. Books, especially
those published abroad, suffer the same fate as the rest of our
commodities.
In her statement, Aguirre believes that the price of books should
have gone down with the technological development that make up for
easier printing and mass production.
"Well,
dati mas madugo kasi typesetting yan noh. Walang computer ... the
cost of printing 100 copies is very expensive (because) much of
the expense is in the beginning ... formatting, typesetting, and
all that," she said. But nowadays, even the author can encode
a camera-ready manuscript and have it produced without a marginal
cost, the dean said.
Amid the high price of books, rental shops do not only benefit by
earning a lot. They also contribute to the improvement of Filipino
readership and literacy, as they provide a cheap source of information
as well as development of the young's thinking faculties.
Although Aguirre said that a bad book to read is better than no
book at all, a dose of precaution should go together with renting
pocketbooks. As much as the business has been showing good effects,
book rental shops are still profit-oriented. They provide anything
that their customers ask for.
"It
can be a good book, it can be smut, it can be anything. It can be
trash. But if people are asking for it, they'll provide it,"
she said.
Thus,
readers should exercise their judgment in choosing what to read
and evaluate the books before borrowing them.
More
than immoral contents, the customers as well as book owners should
watch out for harmful literature that promote hatred and bigotry,
especially because of the exposure of the young.
|