The National Library Board deserves to be complimented for maintaining a rich collection of books.

Over the past decade, I have read at least 1,000 books from libraries here, comprising mostly Singapore Collection books written by local authors.

As I am effectively bilingual, I read both English and Chinese books.

I've seen many errors in these books - mostly typos, but also factual errors in non-fiction books here.

I once read a local book on criminal law and was horrified by errors appearing on almost every other page. This certainly does not bode well for both the book and the author.

Similarly, I've seen many typos in Chinese-language books.

The use of hanyu pinyin in editing Chinese text - where many words of different meanings have the same pronunciation - can lead to errors. I've noticed that Chinese books contained more errors than English books.

Very often, I alert the authors and publishers to the errors, which can, unfortunately, be corrected only in reprints and subsequent editions. It is thus imperative to proofread the manuscript and draft rigorously before publication.

This would effectively help to raise the standard of local literary works.

Teo Kok Seah