We live in an age where you can stream any movie on Netflix, download a book to your Kindle in seconds, and ask an AI to summarize an entire textbook. Everything is instant, digital, frictionless. And yet, somehow, the public library still exists. Not just exists, but thrives. That's kind of weird, right?

The numbers don't lie

In Singapore, the National Library Board (NLB) reported 38.8 million physical and digital items borrowed in 2024, up 2.5 million from the year before. Libraries across the island drew 20.8 million visitors in the same year. Nearly nine in ten adults in Singapore read multiple times per week, according to NLB's 2024 National Reading Habits Study. These are not the numbers of an institution in decline. These are the numbers of something that, against all odds, people still want.

The tech changed, but the shape didn't

Singapore's libraries have actually been at the forefront of library technology. NLB was the first library system in the world to adopt RFID tags on books back in 1998, replacing the old barcode scanning systems. That was nearly three decades ago. Since then, they've added self-service borrowing kiosks, automated book return systems, and in 2022, they piloted something called Grab-n-Go at the National Library Building, where you literally pick up a book and walk through a gantry, and it's automatically checked out to your account. No scanning, no tapping, no waiting. The technology keeps evolving. But the fundamental experience hasn't really changed. You walk in, you browse shelves, you pick something up, you bring it home. The library of 2026 is faster and smoother than the library of 1996, but structurally it's the same thing. A building full of books you can borrow for free.

Why hasn't streaming killed the library?

Netflix killed Blockbuster. Spotify gutted the CD aisle. Kindle made bookstores sweat. So why hasn't the digital revolution made libraries irrelevant? Part of it is access. Not everyone has a Kindle or a Netflix subscription. Libraries serve as equalizers, offering free internet access, computers, and resources to anyone who walks through the door. In a world where the digital divide is still very real, libraries bridge that gap quietly and without judgment. But that's not the whole story. Even people with every streaming service and every device still go to the library. There's something else at play.

The third place thing

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term "third place" to describe spaces that are neither home nor work, places where people can simply be. Coffee shops, parks, community centers. Libraries fit this mold almost perfectly. They're free. They're open to everyone. They don't require you to buy anything. You can stay as long as you want. There's no algorithm deciding what you see. No ads. No subscription tier. Just space, and whatever you choose to fill it with. In an age where almost every public space has been commercialized, the library remains stubbornly, beautifully free. Cities around the world are leaning into this. Libraries are being redesigned with co-working areas, maker spaces, event rooms, and children's play zones. They're becoming community hubs that happen to also have books.

A relic that refuses to age

I think what makes libraries feel weird in 2026 is the contrast. Everything around them has been disrupted, redesigned, optimized. We live in a world obsessed with efficiency and novelty. And here's this institution that has existed in some form for thousands of years, doing roughly the same thing it has always done: collecting knowledge and lending it out for free. The technology layer on top keeps getting shinier. RFID, self-checkout, digital catalogues, e-book lending, AI-powered recommendations. But beneath all of that, the core proposition hasn't changed. A library says: here is knowledge, and it belongs to everyone. That might be the weirdest part. Not that libraries still exist, but that their fundamental promise, free and open access to information, is somehow more radical now than it was a century ago. In a world where everything is paywalled, algorithmically curated, or attention-harvested, the library just quietly keeps doing its thing.

Maybe we're the weird ones

Maybe libraries aren't the relic. Maybe we are, for being surprised they still work. The fact that people keep showing up, keep borrowing, keep bringing their kids on Saturday mornings, suggests that what libraries offer isn't something technology can replace. It's not just about the books. It's about the space, the access, the implicit promise that some things don't have to be monetized to be valuable. Singapore gets this. NLB runs over 19,000 programmes a year, drawing nearly 3 million participants. They're not just lending books, they're building community infrastructure that happens to be wrapped in the familiar shape of a library. So yes, libraries are weird. Wonderfully, stubbornly, necessarily weird. And I hope they stay that way.

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