In mid-May, while the sweltering breath of summer had already blanketed both northern and southern Taiwan, the Taichung area still held onto the cool air of late spring. Stepping out of Taichung HSR Station, I couldn't help but take a deep breath of the crisp, cool air, feeling my mind spring to life—echoing a phrase I've been repeating lately: "I perceive; therefore, I think, therefore I am!"

I got into a taxi driven by a woman, who skillfully tapped in the address of the National Library of Public Information (NLPI) on her navigation system, glanced at the screen, and smoothly pulled away. She merged onto the highway steadily, without reckless overtaking, and about ten minutes later exited toward downtown, guided by clear, well-organized voice prompts for each turn. We soon arrived beside a flowing, river-like white building surrounded by an open, expansive garden—a striking, eye-opening sight.

Before getting out, I thanked the driver for her calm composure and praised her skill navigating the complex city streets. Pointing to her glowing navigation screen, she laughed cheerfully: "It's all thanks to this! I used to be too scared to drive because my sense of direction wasn't great, but now I can go anywhere!" In recent years, the number of female taxi and Uber drivers has grown noticeably, largely because precise navigation systems have freed women drivers from the fear of getting lost—a remarkable example of how modern technology can narrow, even erase, gender gaps in driving ability.

I hurried into the NLPI, having been invited to give the opening address for the 2026 Asia-Pacific Public Library Forum. Since my research team has spent years focused on how reading strengthens neurological development, our new experimental findings should offer fresh insight for libraries' reading-promotion efforts.

Library directors from Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, and Korea attended the forum, and it was clear from their discussions that the biggest shared challenge is defining libraries' role and future direction in the digital age. During a coffee break, I shared the taxi driver's story as an example of how science and technology permeate daily life, built on generations of accumulated knowledge—tracing back to Euclid's projective geometry insights at the Library of Alexandria over 2,000 years ago, which eventually evolved into today's convenient navigation systems. Ancient or modern, the knowledge held in libraries provides a platform for deepening the past, exploring the unknown, and enabling new technologies; the key challenge is how to draw people of all ages into libraries to engage with that knowledge.

In today's knowledge economy, brainpower underpins personal growth, social progress, and national competitiveness, and decades of research confirm reading is the best way to strengthen it. My lab's recent findings, published in an international science journal, show that when 2- to 3-year-olds and their parents read picture books together, the children's neural ability to predict story development improves significantly, along with their vocabulary range. Reading is also highly effA report from University College London tracked 3,556 adult participants and used blood tests to measure biological age and aging speed, finding that people who actively engage in cultural activities—such as regularly visiting libraries, art galleries, and museums—had younger biological ages and slower aging, with more frequent participation producing stronger effects. According to the study, engaging in a cultural activity at least once a week slowed aging by 4%, while once a month slowed it by 3% an effect comparable to exercise.

Highly developed economies, especially Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, face both declining birth rates and super-aged populations (over 20% aged 65+), making the protection of cognitive function at both ends of life an urgent priority. These findings offer strong evidence that reading is vital both for boosting infant brain development and for slowing aging in the elderly. Just as scientists are responsible for researching foundational knowledge and translating it into practical applications, public libraries are responsible for circulating that knowledge to everyone—encouraging parents to read with their young children and encouraging older adults to visit libraries and join cultural activities regularly, so they too can enjoy the wellbeing of a life enriched by reading. (The author is an Academician of Academia Sinica.)