Johor abolishes public library fees

JOHOR BARU: Johor has abolished the membership fee for the 74 public libraries in the state.

Mentri Besar Datuk Mohamed Khaled Nordin hoped that the new initative would help to increase the membership currently at 350,000. The libraries recorded some one million visitors.

"Apart from abolishing the fee, we are looking at ways to further improve our libraries to attract more visitors," Khaled said on Tuesday during a press conference at the launching of "Let's Read Together For 10 minutes" programme.

From today, those registering as new members no longer have to pay RM5 for children and senior citizens, RM10 for teenagers and RM20 for adults aged between 18 and 50 years old.

Khaled said despite the advancement of information technology, libraries remained relevant as the best place to gather knowledge.

He said the availability of information via the internet should not be an excuse for Malaysians not to read books adding they should not be too dependent on news and information from the social media.

"The challenge now is how to attract and encourage youngsters to read books and other materials and not be to obsessed with blogs or other social media," he said.