Do you remember those weekend trips to the neighbourhood library as a child? I would spend hours quietly sitting and reading at the Bedok library, nose-deep in an adventure of my own, before carefully choosing which precious four books to borrow home with my laminated library card.

I recall as a teenager spending whole afternoons sitting at its tables with my friends – our half-baked attempts at studying away from the prying eyes of schoolteachers that unconsciously became a pathway to commiseration.