I REMEMBER.SG: Heritage Road Show IV – Sat 1 Aug 09 @ The Plaza, National Library

National Library Singapore is back with the Heritage Road Show for the fourth year running!

The theme this year, “I Remember Singapore” celebrates the 50th anniversary of Singapore’s self-governance from 1959 to 2009.

What do you remember from the years of growing up in Singapore? Do you recall the opening of the National Stadium in 1973?

Your experiences and stories form an important part of Singapore’s history and the National Library wants to hear from you! Your stories and photos may be selected and showcased on www.iremember.sg.  Cash prizes of up to $5,000 are up for grabs!

 

Highlights of the Road Show

Launch of “I Remember.sg”   2 pm – 4 pm

Witness the launch of the Heritage Road Show by Guest-of-Honour, RADM (NS) Lui Tuck Yew, Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts.

 

“I Remember.sg”  Goes On Air  11 am – 6 pm

Catch “live” interviews with our special guests as they share their memories in conjunction with Singapore’s 50 years of self-governance! Go retro with “live” band performances of hits as far back as the 1950s!

 

The “50 Firsts” Wedding Aisle  11 am – 6 pm

Do you know any couples who have been married for 50 years, 50 weeks, 50 days or 50 hours? Or whose marriage dates add up to 50? Come listen to personal stories of couples who are celebrating the magical “50”!

 

“Changing Landscapes of Singapore” Photo Exhibition  11 am – 6 pm

Take a breather and soak in the picturesque Singapore’s skyline, buildings, streets and landmarks.

 

Vignettes in Time: Singapore Maps and History through the Centuries

1 August to 31 October , Level 10, National Library Building

Vignettes in Time provides snippets of little-known histories of Singapore through maps. Displayed for the first time are many never-before-seen maps from the collections of National Library Singapore & Lim Shao Bin.

Contributed by Sharmini Chellapandi, National Library

A Tour to the Chinese Heritage Centre and Wang Gungwu Library – An Enriching Experience for Understanding Chinese Overseas

Waiting for the guided tour to begin

24 LAS members participated in a tour to the Chinese Heritage Centre (CHC) and Wang Gungwu Library on 10^thJune 2009.

The Centre is the first organization to specialize in the study of Chinese communities outside China. To create an awareness of the history of Chinese Overseas, the centre arranges a guided tour for visitors. One such tour was organized for LAS members.

 We were divided to two groups, guided by two professionals separately, to walk through the exhibitions.

Introducing Mr Tan Lark Sye, founder of Nanyang University

After the guided tour of the Centre, we visited the Wang Gungwu Library.  Mrs Pauh Boon Nia (Head of the Chinese Library of NTU) and Mrs Ruan Yang (Chinese Studies Librarian of NTU) gave an overview of the Wang Gungwu Library.  This was the resource centre of the Chinese Heritage Centre before 2003.  In 2003, Prof Wang Gungwu donated his collection to the resource centre and hence it was renamed the Wang Gungwu Library in recognition of Prof Wang’s generous donation and contribution to research on Chinese Overseas.

Despite their tight schedules, Mr Choy (University Librarian of NTU), Ms Isabella (Deputy University Librarian of NTU), Ms Catherine Tan (the Head of Library Promotion & Senior Assistant Director of NTU) and some other NTU Library staff also joined in to welcome us.

We also visited the book collection and special collection. With about 40,000 volumes specializing in Chinese Overseas and related topics, it is truly a treasure trove for people interested in this area.

Many non-commercially published materials, such as school magazines, commemorative publications of clan associations in Singapore and Malaysia, as well as thread-bound Chinese books can be found in the library. In fact, one of the participants commented that “ although it is quite a small library,  it is really very interesting.”

At the end of the tour, we were treated to a nice spread of refreshments kindly prepared by NTU Library. We enjoyed an enriching afternoon at the Chinese Heritage Centre and Wang Gungwu Library.

Contributed by Luo Biming, Project Librarian, NTU

CONSAL XIV Hanoi Reflections Part II: The Social Life of Documents

The 14th CONSAL conference in Hanoi was a large gathering of librarians from Southeast Asia, trainers, educators and other information professionals who are involved in the ongoing library science education.

It is a tremendous achievement on the part of the organisers and our host, the National Library of Vietnam, to have made this conference so successful in terms of programming and schedules. Of course there were some hiccups, as you would expect given that there were more than 300 participants, but at the end of the day, they were inconsequential.

 

As I work in an academic library, I was naturally drawn to papers that were relevant to my work, in particular, the paper on climate change and Vietnam’s coasts by scientist Dr. Boris Fabres because his core topic falls into the multidisciplinary field of environmental science — a subject area that I have been struggling with in collection development.

We hear about and experience the effects of climate change and know instinctively something is awry — the extreme temperatures and rainfall, extensive bleaching of coral reefs, loss of habitats — to name a few. But finding scholarly and scientific literature to support what we know intuitively is not as straightforward as you imagine it to be. Dr Fabres highlighted the key obstacles in the knowledge ecology and called for more engagement between information professionals and the scientific community so that environmental issues can be elevated from hearsay to research objectives, policy agenda, and curricula in schools.

While the university environment is ideal for such an engagement, in practice, it requires a lot of hard work and time. Given the time demands at the workplace and the nature of institutions (including libraries), it is necessary to make a concerted effort for engaging in a dialogue as well as searching and evaluating sources such as grey literature produced by NGOs working in developing countries. One of the tools that libraries have is subject or research bibliographies.

Compiling bibliographies seem a little old fashioned in view of automated indexing through web crawlers and sophisticated software, but I see compiling specialised bibliographies as an invaluable way of initiating dialogue with people who work in the field. If we have a target audience, as I do in an academic library, it is an added bonus knowing that the resulting bibliography is relevant and useful to a group of people. The social life of documents is an aspect of information and library science that we seldom hear about amidst discussions on processes, services and technologies. It would certainly put a human dimension to how resources are organised and made more accessible in libraries in the context of production of knowledge. In short, knowledge is social and libraries are an integral part of the cycle.  

 By way of a postscript, I was wonderfully surprised that the Library Association of Singapore (LAS) agreed to sponsor my participation in CONSAL XIV, and I would like to express my sincere thanks for the opportunity to attend and see for myself the potential of such meetings in bringing together information professionals to share industry knowledge and experience despite, or perhaps because of, varying levels of expertise.

 Fabres, Boris (2009) “Climate change and Vietnam’s coasts” in The 14^th Congress of Southeast Asian Libraries (CONSAL) conference proceedings. Conference held in Hanoi, 20-23 April 2009.

 Contributed by Winnifred Wong. NUS Libraries

LAS Journal goes Green and Open Access

With effect from this year, the Singapore Journal of Library and Information Management (SJLIM) goes green and open access. The LAS Council  approved the proposal on 8 May 2009.

Green

SJLIM goes green by being available online only. We save on resources by not having to print the journal and to mail it to individual members. It will be made available on the LAS website for access any time.

Open Access

SJLIM goes open access by changing its copyright statement to:

“The copyright of a work published in SJLIM is held by the author. Authors may post the work on personal or institutional Web sites and in other open-access digital repositories. The authors must warrant that their article is original and the original work of the authors. The authors must also obtain relevant permissions from any third-party copyright holders and intellectual property owners.
 
The Library Association of Singapore (LAS) reserves the right to permanently maintain open access to all published articles, to maintain permanent archival copies of all submissions, to provide print or electronic copies to appropriate services for indexing and to use all published materials in various formats for LAS’s exclusive non-commercial purposes.”

We hope this will make SJLIM more accessible, more visible and with the potential to have a greater impact.

Contributed by Yeo Pin Pin, Chairperson LAS Publications Committee

Cool Quotes!

One of the things I learned in library school is that when people have an information need, they’ll always ask people they know before they ask a librarian. The trick is making sure that librarians are some of the people they know.

Jessamyn West. “Metafilter: Going Your Way.” Library Journal, Oct. 15, 2006, http://libraryjournal.com/article/CA6379558.html

Progress Report of Special Libraries Section (May-Jul 09)

  1.  Inaugural Business Librarians Tea Session @ Imagination Room, National Library

Over 30 business librarians held an informal meeting on 23 Jun 09, hosted by NLB.  The group comprises business librarians from NLB, NUS, NTU, SMU, SIM, EDB, IE Singapore, IRAS, MAS, MTI, Bain & Co., etc.  SLS was represented by Susan Song-Lim, Manimekalai Thirumalai, and Hsu Yahsin.

The objective is to organize informal gatherings so that those interested can build a network amongst the business librarians in Singapore and provide support to one another when needed.  The group shared their challenges at work and expectations of how this network could help them or their libraries.  While one or two have great ambitions for the group (e.g. building subject repo), majority are contented just to have the opportunity to meet up,  make new friends, tap on one another’s resources and share information.

The group agreed to meet quarterly.  Each meeting, to be hosted and chaired by respective libraries/institutions, will discuss an issue of interest.  The next meeting to be held in Sept/Oct will be at the NTU.  In the meantime, the group agreed to work via email on its Terms of Reference (ToR) and to create a brief profile for each participating library.  The objective is to keep the ToR simple and informal so as not to encourage more participation from the business libraries community.

 

2.  Law Librarians Group’s Sharing Session @ Library Training Room, Li Ka Shing Library, SMU

On 16 July 09, Charlotte Gill conducted a sharing session on creating a customized current awareness service using RSS feeds. A total of 25 participants attended the training.  Besides the Law Librarians Group, it is also open to SLS committee members so that those interested can learn and create their subject specific awareness service to be shared with their respective groups.  Owing to resource constraints, SLS is unable to open this session to other LAS members.  The participants generally found the session to be very useful and relevant, and agreed that they would explore implementing such a service back in their workplace. 

Susan Song-Lim

Visit to SAFTI Library (15 May 09)

Write-up by Hwang Shu Rong, NUS Libraries

Visit to SAFTI Library

On 15 May 2009, 24 participants spent a wonderful afternoon visiting the SAFTI Library. When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed by Ms Kym Loo Gim Hwa, who manages SAFTI Library. We also took this opportunity to mingle and interact with each other.

Time to catch-up

The programme started off with an introduction of library resources, services and facilities. SAFTI Library has built up a special collection serving the needs of staff and students of the SAFTI Military Institute and members of MINDEF and the SAF. 80% of their collection is on military titles, 10% on leadership and the rest on miscellaneous topics.

Interestingly, this library offers FREE membership to all Singapore citizens and they can borrow a maximum of 4 books for 3 weeks, with 2 renewals. Most of our participants signed up for membership on the spot! J  

The library organizes professional talks such as “Viewpoints” every quarter with speakers invited to share their expert experience and knowledge. 

Learning about SAFTI library

 This visit to SAFTI Library provided a good opportunity for our participants to mingle with each other and understanding how the library operates. Everyone enjoyed the visit and we left SAFTI feeling enriched. We look forward to more library visits organized by the LAS Programmes and Social Committee.

Contributed by:
Hwang Shu Rong, Librarian, NUS  Libraries (June 2009)

Singapore Polytechnic’s Colours Extension

A Bustling New Colours Extension for Students

The New Colours Extension overlooks lush greenery

At the Singapore Polytechnic Library’s 50th Anniversary Celebration on 8 August 2008, SP Principal Mr Tan Hang Cheong unveiled 2 bold expansion plans to guests, staff and students of the poly attending the event. One was the construction of a single-storey pavilion at the quadrangle space located in front of the Main Library and the other was a brand new Hilltop Library to replace the existing BizIT library.

Students and teaching staff were pleasantly surprised that at long last, the space crunch in the 2 libraries would now be alleviated with more spaces for learning, social interaction and student-centred gathering opportunities for the meeting of minds and sharing of experiences.  Included in the plans was the much talked about cafe, a must-have facility which students have always wanted, and that will now become a reality in the Library.  In fact, as the plans were announced, work on these 2 projects actually started during that first week of August and would finish in the first half of 2009. 

While the construction work began to take shape, the Library staff lost no time in planning for a new collection of educational and board games and upgrading its multimedia collection to include the latest blu-ray discs. The Technical Services Staff workroom was also revamped and renovated during this time for improved work flow and efficiency.

Fast forward to 23 April 2009, the first week of our new Academic year, euphoria filled the air as excited staff and students explored the new Colours Extension to the Main Library as soon as it was declared opened. Occupying almost half of the quadrangle space, the tall tinted glass façade of the Colours Extension looks out into a lush carpet grass lawn with colourful Canna plants, young instant trees and smart outdoor seating. Inside is the spacious cafe dining area with colourful tables and 114 seats, a magazine lounge with spanking new white shelves for
reading general magazines and an exhibition area to showcase student projects

To better integrate the new extension with the ground floor, part of this area and the corridor space had been reconfigured to add other new facilities. These included a games room for playing board games, a posh 25-seater Media Theatre equipped with a high fidelity sensurround audio-visual system for teaching staff to conduct classes for students, a media viewing zone with the latest HD screens for enjoying blu-ray discs and DVD programmes, as well as a special room housing the collection of CDs, DVDs and blu-ray discs. Students may borrow board games from the new Loans counter, while a self-check machine nearby is available for the loan of multimedia materials.

With the additional new facilities, students now have more choices than ever to select from a wide variety of services and facilities to liven up their time in the Library. The Colours Extension. as it is aptly named after the Colours (Lifestyle) collection, is really the coolest new hangout in the campus. Since its opening more than 2 months ago, the Colours Extension has brought much buzz and vibrancy to the area.  No wonder it is getting a warm reception from students and staff alike.

Walking through the new extension, it is not hard to see why students have been heading there in droves with their friends to hang out, chat, or engage in activities such as playing games at the Funtasia room, catching a movie during breaks, surfing the internet or even discussing their coursework.  

Enjoying games in the Funtasia Room

And why not, since there’s always coffee and refreshments from the Hotshot Cafe to recharge their energies and stay upbeat while they relax and watch the large Cable TV showing world-wide news and discovery channel programmes.

Hotshot Cafe

Said one happy first-year student, Esther Gusti, from the School of Chemical and Life Sciences, “I like this place and come here about 3 to 4 times a week. The seats in the magazine lounge are comfortable, the magazines are well arranged and there are enough copies of newspapers to read.”

Jared Ong and Filzah Aziz, both first-year students from the School of Electrical and Electrical Engineering, find the Colours Extension “a good hangout, to catch up with coursework and play games such as monopoly”.

“I love the ambience,” says Goh Kian Yong, A Diploma in Media and Communication graduate said after dropping by the extension. “This is a good place for me to catch up with my juniors during my free time.”  

Now let the pictures do the talking…..

A comfortable magazine lounge.

The Exhibition area showcasing student projects

HD-viewing pleasure at the Media zone.

   
By Mary Goh,  Singapore  Polytechnic  Library