Giving credit

The Macau SAR government has allocated a generous MOP900 million for the development of a new Central Library. The Hong Kong SAR spent nearly MOP700 million to build – from scratch – its 9,400 square metre, 12-storey-high Central Library. Singapore’s National Library, a 16-storey building completed in 2005, cost slightly more than MOP1 billion. Right. Those facilities were built more than a decade ago, and money has a different value these days. And it may well be that the Macau SAR government needs such an amount to produce a convincing project: designed by a talented architect, with multiple functions, environmentally-friendly technologies, and the latest information-retrieval systems. Moreover, the plan has been “studied” for such a long time – the idea of creating a new central library to replace the 120-year-old one at Tap Seac was first proposed in 2002 – and revised so many times in terms of design and location, that we must believe the government knows what it is doing. Let’s give them some credit for a change – it’s not easy to be a public servant in Macau – but of course with the proviso that they are clear and clean with their intentions, unlike in 2008 when the public tender for the new library facility had to be suspended due to a conflict of interest (a member of the project committee won the competition). Another point is that a central library is no trivial matter. It should confer prestige and respect on a city. More often than not, that costs money. It should make citizens proud and, even more importantly, instigate or enhance their reading habits. Then again, online databases such as Wikipedia are wondrous achievements of the contemporary world, so why bother? Because books are vessels of ideas, thoughts, imagery, and imaginaries that one cannot find on Facebook. A library is also a space of silence, and reflection – all, it seems, in short supply in a city as hectic and congested as Macau. If achieved, it can only do good. After all the fuss about the location – the old Hotel Estoril, proposed by deputy Chui Sai Peng in 2015, was quite sensible, but a central library placed in Hengqin would only be central to Hengqin – the government has apparently recovered its focus. Sticking with the old courthouse building, it seems the plan will finally take off. But with a completion date estimated to be in 2022? That will be 20 years since the plan was first unveiled by the government. Credit may run out.