Taiwan's Libraries

Taiwanese Libraries...
OK, the past weekend I just visited supposedly the biggest library in Taiwan, it houses fiction, non-fiction and everything in between. The ghetto thing was that all the fiction books were only in chinese, as well as most of the non-fiction ones. Another issue was to enter the library, you needed to swipe in a card, even someone like me needed to swipe a visitor card issued to be after registering. Apparently, they don't want strangers visiting the library, as they may try to steal books. In addition, no one was allowed to bring in any bags, such as a knapsack, anything larger than a purse had to be put in a locker as there was a fear ppl would use them to smuggle books out of the library.

Now, I know Toronto has its own share of library book thieves, but I am so grateful we don't have to resort to these Draconian measures. The library was quite large, but probably not bigger than U of T or Metro Toronto Reference Library.

Did I mention how hot it still is in Taiwan? We did have some rain recently, but for some reason it was still hot even while it was raining.

In short, I would just like to add I am very dissapointed with the libraries in Taiwan....