KOTA KINABALU: Books will be around for years to come especially for those who love the touch, smell and feel of a new book.
“Don’t be fearful of the digital age as books, real books will still be here for 100 years,” former Chief Minister Tan Sri Chong Kah Kiat said when launching a book on the history of North Borneo titled ‘North Borneo: A collective History’ published by Opus Publication here yesterday.
He pointed out that nothing can beat the feeling of holding a book and assured the publisher that real books will not be consumed by the digital era.
Touching on the book which was edited by Dr Lim Pitt Kent who contributed some of the photographs together with other contributors such as historian Ross Ibbotson, Nicholas Tan, Professor Bruce Blanche and Dr Ravi Mandalam, Chong said it made him nostalgic and reminisce about his days growing up in Kudat.
“As you can see from the photographs, Sabah in those days of North Borneo had already the harmony, unity and love that it is synonymous for now. The photos of the multi-racial people reflects just that,” he said adding that the book is a perfect gift for Sabahans who are now living abroad so that they can have a piece of the state’s history with them.
“The history and nostalgia is captured in this book. This is why projects like this book must continue,” Chong said after regaling those present at the launching ceremony with stories of his experiences when growing up.
For Dr Lim who edited the book and contributed most of the photographs from his private collection, he is happy to see two of his interests combined into the project.
“I am a collector of photographs of North Borneo and I love history so basically it’s a combination of both history and art. We came up with the idea for this book to document history. This particular project involves the history of items not held by the museum or archives.
“There are a lot of private collectors so hopefully we can make use of their collections of photographs of North Borneo for future projects,” he said adding that the project took two years to complete.
Meanwhile Opus Publishing Managing Direcor Datuk CL Chan said that they only printed 450 copies as they did not expect the response to be overwhelming.
“We have no intention to reprint it,” he said adding that the book is a very important documentation for North Borneo as it contains photographs and information which have never been published before,” he said.
Chan also spoke of Opus’ future projects which will be a book on Sandakan based on the photographs of the Kwan brothers taken just before the outbreak of the Second World War and in early post war Sandakan.