The Central Lending Library - My Home of the Future

Spanking new glass and glamour. All 15 storeys of it. On almost every floor, there is at least one exhibition going on. Like the one I caught featuring Admiral Zheng He's legendary voyage.

But the really "hot" stuff is this : only one basement level is open to the public for lending out. This is where the adult, youth and children's collections are compressed together. Imagine little kids running wild amidst the crowd of other serious library users. You better watch your steps or you may end up whamming into one of these "kids on skates". They do sprawl themselves out on the sofa too so before plonking your rumps onto any of these, keep your eyes peeled please.

Half the building is dedicated to the staging of the performing arts. The other half is where mugging, serious research and reference are being done.

This is the part of the building I like best. I could choose a sofa settee near the ceiling-to-floor bay windows and read to my heart's content. One end faces the congested road of Bras Basah while the other opens out to the blue sky, the sea and the Esplanade.

I spied an Atlas Moth one day clinging onto its pristine and gleaming facade. This has to be the pinnacle dramatic irony. Nature amongst nurture or is it just a crossing over where nature meets nurture? So if you are a lepidoterist, this must be a biggy yeah?

At night, the scene comes alive with twinkling lights and columns of moving headlamps.

There is a donors' collections section which I feel is so insane for it to exhibit books which we cannot even interact with by flipping its pages. So what is the point? Isn't a book supposed to be read?

Those kaleidoscopic images of Singapore on the upper wall of Level 11 actually houses two floors of even rarer collection of South-Eastern heritage. These are held in glass cabinets which could be the old Victorian Cabinet Museums Professor Stephen Jay Gould speaks of in his books.

We don't get to see any more of the OPAC system. Instead these are replaced by cool LCD screens strewn strategically throughout the library. You could even top up your cash-cards at one of those self-automated machines (SAM).

This place beats Kinokuniya to some extent if for the sit-down reading pleasure , the ambience and breath-taking window view. However for up-to-the-minute availability of resources, Kino still reigns.

Guess I will be spending some good part of my life between the two. This could very well be my 2nd or 3rd home.