Years	Students
	Domestic Books	Foreign Books
2008	90,169	942
2009	98,098	978
2010	70,790	699
2011	47,293	611
2012	45,746	565

  This table shows the annual amount of rentals of general publications from Gachon University library. As you can see, the amount of rental is constantly decreasing, and it applies not only to Gachon University students but also to students nationwide. The seriousness of college students’ deficient reading is not even surprising news. Their interest in society and culture has noticeably increased these days, but the amount of reading amongst similar groups took the lowest place among OECD countries. It is not getting better. Last year Korean Educational Development Institute surveyed 202 university libraries and the result demonstrates that the number of rented books from the university library last year was 1.7 million, down by about 0.5 million compared to the year before last year’s 2.2 million. Do you have any suggestions to solve this problem? I’m going to introduce you to a way to read books easily. 
  Have you ever heard about E-book that operates in campus? E-book is an electronic library system that enables you to borrow books through smart phones instead of going to the central library. Currently, the total number of books available via E-book is 13,073, purchased from Kyobo Books, Woori E-books and Nuri Media. The library is constantly purchasing more books on various topics every year. 
  To use E-book, you need to log-in at the main page of E-book after visiting the library homepage. Click the e-book of any publisher that you want. In the case of smart phones, you can borrow e-books by downloading each publisher’s application. (Warning: You have to do the first rental through the E-book system of the central library homepage by PC, so that you can search Gachon library on your smart phone.) Kyobo e-book is also available to use on your smart phone after you log-in to the central library homepage on a PC and click on the member modification in the main screen and change the password.
  What are the merits of E-book? First, you can read books whenever and wherever you want. It is easy to find books by smart phone instead of going to the library. Second, smart phones are portable and can store a large amount of books and take up less space. E-books can contain approximately 500 books per 256 Mb. You don’t have to take a lot of heavy books, and you can read them easily by using the wonderful storage capacity of your smart phone. Third, it has a searching function that helps you find information easily, and there’s also a bookmarking function. Therefore, you can choose books according to your individual tastes and find the last page you read. Finally you can change the font as you want and it is easy to adjust the font size depending on your eyesight. Unlike regular books, E-book offers the best conditions to read a book. Moreover you can even borrow the old out-of-print books, and since e-book doesn’t need paper, this is a big help to the environment. If so, what is our school’s current status of e-book rental? The following table lists the amount of recent rentals. 

Division	Kyobo		Woori		Nuri		Sum
Period	Log-ins	Rental numbers	Log-ins	Rental numbers	Log-ins	Rental numbers	Log-ins	Rental numbers
2011	838	383	1257	420	3	3	2095	806
2012	568	169	636	221	8	8	1204	398
Sum	1406	552	1893	641	11	11	3299	1204

  Thus, regardless of these various advantages, the amount of rentals is lower than we expected. Maybe the reason is because there are many students who don’t know about E-book. This is an easier and less expensive way to read books! I wish my schoolmates make the most of E-book in their spare time or commuting time. E-book is literally a small library in my hand. Use this valuable asset in this information-oriented society! How about having a smart life and increase our knowledge through advanced technology?