Scientific books uninteresting?

Published: 31/01/2009 05:00

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Sales of scientific books are minimal, why? Some say Vietnamese people don’t like reading scientific books while others argue that the market for scientific books has potential but publishers fail to make them into attractive products.

Scientific books for children.

“When I was 8, I was presented a lovely painting-mathematics book. Complicated mathematics formulas and definitions were explained simply by paintings,” told Dinh An, a member of the Green Dream volunteer group, HCM City. For him, that book features Western culture and contains a lot of scientific knowledge.

An’s passion for science began from funny scientific books, like Funny Chemistry, Funny Physics, etc., which explain natural phenomena by funny stories, paintings, etc. He also learned about sciences from science fiction books and some scientific magazines named The Light, PC World, and online scientific forums.

“Popular scientific and science fiction books helped consolidate my thinking and gave me updated information about science in the world,” An said.

Anh Dung, an 11th grader from the Tran Hung Dao High School, HCM City, loved reading comics. Since his mother “encouraged him to read a book on popular scientific knowledge, Dung gradually loved this kind of book. He now looks for specialised books, not popular books anymore.

Nguyen Yen, a student, said she likes reading scientific books because she is eager to learn new things and knowledge and to seek solutions for her jobs. She said to create the habit of reading books, particularly scientific books, she strictly followed her reading timetable for a long time.

An expert from the Physics-Biomedicines Institute, Vu Cong Lap, said reading is a skill. For scientific books, which are not as popular as other types of books, reading skills are even more important and need to be taught to children of school age.

“The habit of reading scientific books is a significant factor to make a “culture” of scientific books and stimulate the market for scientific books,” Lap said.

Yet, the number of people who have the habit of reading scientific books seems to be very modest in Vietnam.

Some opinions about scientific books:

Le Dung (student): We are in a knowledge-based economy. The application of science and technology in daily life is important. Reading scientific books is like learning social knowledge. Scientific knowledge should be written simply to access a wide range of readers.

I think to read scientific books, one must have the need to learn or be curious for something so they read scientific books to satisfy their eagerness.

Mai Hien (student): I wish to have many more scientific books of good quality. Good quality is shown through a nice cover, good quality of paper, good marketing policy. The launching of scientific books should go with other activities like meetings with the authors or organising a forum for readers.

Dinh An (student): I’m not satisfied with the current scientific books. There are too few titles of scientific books. I can’t find many books that I like in Vietnam. I hope the government subsidises publication of popular scientific books so children, especially poor children, can buy them.

Le Quynh

Provide by Vietnam Travel

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