Jason Epstein, who launched the trade paperback format in the US in 1952 while working as a young editor at Doubleday and later co-founded The New York Review of Books, said,
'My rooms are piled from floor to ceiling with books so that I have to think twice about where to put another one. If by some unimaginable accident all these books were to melt into air leaving my shelves bare with only a memorial list of digital files left behind I would want to melt as well for my books are my life.' *
To many on CUHK campus, including the editors of the Information Services Office, books are as precious as our lives. But instead of wanting to melt into thin air with the hardcopies, we initiated and recently completed the project of digitizing all the booklets and bulletins we published over the years, collectively the institutional memory of the University. Why? Check out the main feature in this issue.
Are humans born with innate abilities and ingrained modules? Or is everything acquired through education and acculturation? The nature-nurture debate may only concern the philosophers and the cognitive scientists, but sometimes simple games can reveal the workings of the human mind to those who look closely enough. Prof. Louis Lee will tell you Sudoku is not just about numbers.
If we had predicted that 'Mouth-watering Morsels' would be such a hit, we would have used the title: 'Morsels Most Mortals Cannot Refuse'. The gourmet’s choice in this issue—pizzas—is what most people, at least young ones, cannot always refuse. Bon appétit!
*'Publishing: The Revolutionary Future', NYRB, Vol. LVII, No. 4 (March 11–24, 2011): 6.
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