Hurry up and wait

Lots and lots of Korean books

Today I get to the library to meet a rather frustrated Ms. Sheryl.  There has been progress, but she's rather frustrated at the pace.  The boxes of old books that we want to swop in the Book Cross scheme still haven't been claimed and it looks like the process will take longer than first thought - so an intermediate storage space has been found for them, but not a strong person who's able and willing and has time to move them.  I can see those boxes really annoy her.  Luckily I only have to see them once a week, and hopefully they'll be gone before my next visit.

Oh No! The boxes are still here ...

The first shelf has a huge collection of Korean books.  She's asked the Korean students what they are and why and it seems they're mainly Korean fiction from a time that some students were studying Korean.  I snap a picture and send to Ms. Katie with the question of whether her IB Korean students / teachers would be interested.  Yes they would.  Another "swop" opportunity. So we need to clear it with the HOS and Korean community to see what is needed and what can be missed.  In the mean time, the books are relocated to a less prominent position.


 Ms. Sheryl asks if I'd mind reading to a P2 class who's about to come in.  Oops, how am I going to find a book that's appropriate?  What unit were they doing again?  It's "who we are"and the teacher is talking about feelings and emotions in the classroom.  I have a quick look through the picture books - luckily Ms. Sheryl has sorted them between Nursery to P2 and P3-6, so I can hit the right shelves.  No catalogue means no quick look up, and no shelf labeling or organisation means taking the books out a pile at a time and manually looking through them.  I find a nice little book about Anger and another about a boy who can't sit still in class and put them aside.  Then I go back to my library exploration tour and find a pile of PYP books hidden in the back.   Sort those out to put them on the front (ex-Korean) shelf.   But in walk the kids - oops there goes my sorting and lots of little hands grope the piles with "can I have this one, what's this ..." the teacher quickly gets into action and announces that they're going to get a story and I start with the "can't sit still one" which works a treat for getting them seated and listening.  The Angry book gets lots of (solicited) information about tiresome younger and older siblings and how they manage feeling mad.  

Yippie! Some of the teachers want some of the text books

Then they're let loose to borrow some books, which they then have to write down on a borrowing list.  Yup, we're very manual for the time being.

As soon as they leave, I comb through all the junior books for early readers and reading schemes and find a mish-mash of Oxford Reading Tree, "I can read" PYP readers, ladybird books and anything and everything else.  I put these aside for the next request.  But the shelf I've just emptied is filthy, there have been some issues with the cleaners - another of Ms. Sheryl's frustrations that needs to be sorted out.  She gets me a bowl of water and a cloth and soap and I set about wiping down the shelf.  Little by little we'll get the place spick and span and then the maintenance won't be so hard.

Meanwhile Ms. Sheryl does a little bit of networking around the classrooms to find some candidates for some of the many text-books clogging up the shelves.  In a few weeks we'll have 2000 books arriving that are relevant and needed, so there is not much space for all those text books.  She finds takers for the Science and English textbooks and workbooks.  Luckily - that saves about 2 or 3 shelves.  

I attack the magazine rack - not a good option in this climate.  The books and magazines on display are looking rather sad with curled up corners.  Some of the magazines have been there since 2004 - I find a box for items to be binned and in they go.  The books get reshelved and the rack is slowly cleared.  It will probably be put outside the library for some "lifestyle" items.

Then we get a nice surprise - someone comes to collect the 'claimed' text books, they're off the floor now, and we get a delivery of old VCR boxes that Ms. Katie used to use for her moveable bookshelf labeling!  Ms. Sheryl gets to work making labels.  We decide at this point the DDC is a remote dream, and we'll start by labeling the primary section by unit of enquiry.  The secondary can get the DDC.  

They're everywhere, they're everywhere!  Just as I want to leave, I find another 6 shelves full of Korean books - Ms. Sheryl agrees that it would be a good idea to weed the collection and replace it with books that are in shorter supply at the school.  We have a new mission!  

      

Just before I leave I find even more Korean books

 The teacher approaches me for some easy phonic based reading books in English for a new Chinese student who is learning to read in English - oh dear, we have to do the sort through piles thing again to find something.

Booky day

My day started early with a visit to the Geylang branch of the NLB.  There we met with the person in charge of the DEAR books and went through our needs.

We decided to concentrate on the first two units of enquiry for the PYP and MYP programmes, as we were not sure how long it would take for delivery.

The first units are as follows:

Nursery-K1 & P2-P4 & P6:  Who we Are
K2 & P5: Where we Are in Place and Time
P1: How we organise ourselves

Starting in Nursery, and getting more complex as the children move up through the school, the "who we are" units focus on the self, friendships, beliefs, rights and responsibilities, and cultural values.

On the other hand "How we organise ourselves" has to do with structures and procedures and "Where we are in Place and Time" looks at evolution of things through history, for the K2's that involves toys and games, and for the P4 students taking a look at past civilizations, systems and technologies.

The second units involve the following:

Nursery: How we express ourselves
K1: How the world works
K2, P1&P5: Who We Are
P2-4 & P6: Where we Are in Place and Time

The nursery students look at how feelings are expressed, while K1 is busy with the weather and how it shapes the lives of people.
The groups looking at "who we are" are covering a wide range of age-appropriate topics starting with health and taking care of your body, relationships with other people, and attitudes and choices.  While "where we are" examines family histories, exploration, tools and migration.

Quite a wide range of very diverse topics!  The challenge is to match the topics with the Dewey Decimal Classification system so you know where to look for what you need.  Some things are obvious - like looking in the 930's for ancient civilizations.  Others are a little less obvious - for example cultural aspects are spread between geography, history, art, music etc.

After I'm finished, I go off to do some volunteer work at a second hand shop.  There I find piles of books about to be dumped.   Before you get all upset about the dumping thing - as you may have read previously books in a sad state of humidity and mold are both a health hazard and a hazard to other "healthy" books.  So one has to be cruel to be kind.
So I quickly snap a shot and sms Ms. Katie - is she interested?  Yes definitely as some books are fashion and culture related to the 60's and she has some IB EE (International Baccalaureate, Extended Essay) students who would love to access them.  Others will be a useful addition to the school collection and still others, which are in really bad condition will be cut up by the design and technology and art students for their projects.

When I finish my shift, I load up the books and am greeted by some very enthusiastic IB students who "ooh" and "aah" over my cache.

Presentation of the plan

Today was the day to present the plan!  But first we spent some time going around the school meeting teachers and heads of department and finding out the scheduling of the various units of enquiry, which units were to be studied and what the information needs would be.  Our first concrete action was going to be getting a selection of books from the NLB through their DEAR scheme.

The DEAR scheme is a bulk lending programme, whereby:

"The NLB welcomes schools and learning centres, social, welfare, and community organisations which are embarking on the promotion of reading initiatives to borrow books in bulk for their members' use. This service, called DEAR@Schools and DEAR@Community, is provided free of charge and subjected for renewal on a yearly basis.

All DEAR@Schools and DEAR@Community members are entitled to borrow up to a maximum of 2,000 books for a loan period of 84 days (12 weeks)."

For a school on a limited budget and limited resources (physical and staffing) this is a great way to get resources up and running in a short time frame. 

Then the meeting with the Head of School (HOS) to see if we had support for our ambitious plans!   Luckily we did, however, not everything could be achieved at once, so we needed to work step-by-step.

The first priority was ordering the books the teachers needed for delivery as soon as possible.  We'd arranged a slot with the NLB to do that tomorrow.  Then while we are waiting for the book delivery we have to work hard to make sure we have the physical space and the logistics in place for receiving, storing, disbursing, returning and sending the books back to the NLB.

Library make-over plan

My visit had me so excited, that instead of doing my coursework, I decided to make a little power-point presentation of what could be done.  I can't take credit for all of this, as a lot of people had already been involved in the project.  With things the school head and former school librarian had already arranged (book-cross and DEAR borrowing) and ideas from Ms. Sheryl and Ms. Katie.  I've copied and pasted it below - but obviously the plan is a work in progress and subject to change - I'll be interested to see what the final product will be.

New library adventures!

Books for secondary - old books stacked in boxes on floor

In order to get some work experience I've agreed to volunteer a day a week at a bilingual international school here in Singapore.  The school has around 500 pupils, 250 each in primary and secondary and teaches in English and Chinese.

The library situation is a little dire, which is why I was asked to help out.  I was quite intimidated at first as I have a little bit of theoretical knowledge based on the courses I've done (and passed so far), and a little bit of practical knowledge based on volunteering at the library at my kids school - and managing my own over stuffed bookshelves at home, and a little bit of experiencing knowledge based on visiting libraries all my life and the intensive library tour from my course which is documented earlier.

Junior school section. Non-fiction in shelves on stairs

I made it quite clear that I was no guru - but luckily I'm being very capably mentored by Ms. Katie, the uber-wonderful librarian at my kid's school.  And I'm also very lucky to have Ms. Sheryl, who is the new school de-facto librarian at the school, despite the fact that she has had not training or experience in the librarian field - but makes up for that with enthusiasm and a "can do" attitude.

Due to the paucity of the library's collection, it was decided to consolidate the books from junior and senior school in an old squash court and to work from there.  The first visit revealed that the junior books had been placed on the stairs, and the secondary on the court.  The collection consisted mainly of Chinese books and textbooks.  There was no discernable order to the collection, the catalogue was "lost" and there were classes of eager young students coming in looking for books, and teachers needing resources for their units of enquiry.

textbooks and teacher resources

"wall" of books, no labeling, lots of text books

"stuff" to be sorted on floor

Nice study area, newly renovated

study area with tables and chairs

International Experience Portfolio

The entries below constitute the International experience Portfolio.   First a summary of each organisation is presented through the Study Visit report, and then the aspects I wish to highlight are presented.

Although I'm living as an expatriate in Singapore, which is its own cultural experience, one realizes you can experience culture on a number of levels.  Each organisation we visited had their own unique culture and identity.  

In the libraries this was expressed through the design of the various spaces, the emphasis of the collection and the staffing choices.  At each organisation what was very striking was the way in which employees expressed their identity through the organisation of their desks.  At Singapore Press Holdings for example the open plan office was filled to the brim with hundreds of indoor plants of all descriptions.  There was even an aquarium on one desk.  At Singapore Polytechnic, employees had used the desk lamps to hang a myriad of little figurines and toys and all attempts to create a truly open plan office were being thwarted by staff needs for privacy and their own space. 

Libraries where the head librarian was 'politically' well connected or where the organisation head was vested in a thriving information community were better staffed, better resourced and had more vibrant, innovative and enthusiastic feel to them.  That's not to say that other libraries didn't do an excellent job of managing their resources and putting library users first.

Instead of writing this chronologically, I've divided the experience into the areas that I found most interesting in the visit and where there were noticable differences between the libraries:

* Collection

* Reference Services

* Promotion

* Physical Environment

In conclusion the trip was extremely valuable both from a librarianship and a cultural point of view. 

Study Visit report

STUDY VISIT REPORT

SINGAPORE STUDY VISIT 24TH – 27TH SEPTEMBER 2013

Name: Nadine Bailey Student Number: 11510358                        Subject: INF407

INSTRUCTIONS

You are required, as part of your subject assessment, to complete the attached Study Visit report. You need to submit the report within 7 days of the end of the study visit via EASTS as directed in your subject outline. Please use ONLY the space provided. You have been given spaces to assist you to be concise and to analyse each visit and not merely describe the contents. Your report will be read by the study visit leader, and will be assessed as Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory. Your report will be returned within three weeks of the due date of your report. If your Report is unsatisfactory, you will be asked to complete a second Report.

Reflection Guidelines

This Reflection section should be a concise summation of your reflections on the visits made during your study visit. For each visit, in the space allocated, you should comment on the value of the visit to you i.e. what you learned from the visit and how this added to your knowledge of libraries in general or of this particular type of library. This should be written in a narrative style. You can write in first person and you are not required to provide references.

Evaluation Guidelines

Please write some notes on each visit you made during the study visit, indicating what you thought the strengths of the visit were and highlighting any weaknesses. Also, please rate the facility from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest rating. This evaluation will be used by staff to judge the value of each visit and whether that library should be visited again in future study visits. Your notes can be presented in point form.

Monday: Tanglin Trust School

Reflection The libraries are extremely well resourced both in personnel and in materials.  It clearly shows the advantages when the head of the library is seen as a partner in information and knowledge rather than just someone who manages online and offline resources. What struck me most was when the head librarian mentioned that she’d been consulted on the design and layout of the library prior to construction and also that she counted (in power terms) as a head of faculty and was present in all meetings and part of the school’s decision making process. This explains a lot why and how the library came to be so well resourced, staffed and laid out. In the senior library It was interesting to see how the library constructed and managed the balance between interactive (busy / noisy) and reflective (study / quiet) zones.  The virtual space (http://libguides.tts.edu.sg/) was equally well resourced.  The primary and infant libraries were very welcoming spaces where one can assume children will feel at home and foster an early appreciation and love for reading.

Evaluation                                                                                                                              Rating 5_/5 A very interesting visit.  In our course we have had quite a few forum discussions on the potential of libraries and library officers that often end with what appears to be bureaucratic issues and powerless non-networked library personnel.  This is an excellent example how someone who is not only extremely competent in what she does can succeed in “her” world in the library space but can also be seen as a powerful member of the decision making and resource allocating team.   I would be interested to see if this translates into better results academically for the school.

Monday:       Ngee Ann Polytechnic – Lien Ying Chow Library

Reflection Once again Ngee Ann Polytechnic showed how a competent library team paired with abundant resources and a supportive principal can result in a very welcoming and well functioning space.  Research has often indicated that students in the vocational sector may be reluctant users of libraries.  Their choice in making the entry area the  “lifestyle” part of the library with an integrated café / bookstore concept and plenty of interactive opportunities (TV / interactive table / game zone / Exhibition space) seems to have translated in good visitation and loan statistics.  The library team seemed justifiably proud of the many “firsts” they had booked.   I was struck by the enthusiasm of the staff, and was also impressed by the number of staff training days (12 x 5 day training per year). Good thought has gone into integrating Information Literacy into the curriculum with a combination of library and lecturer involvement.   I liked the fact that it involved not only classroom learning but also experiential learning such as the knowledge hunt activity, some online learning and mobile learning.

Evaluation                                                                                                                Rating 5/5 Enthusiastic staff is contagious!  If as visitors we had a good feeling about the library I’m sure that also translates to how students feel about their library.  Well worth a visit, given the debates in the library world about the café / bookstore concept versus the academic library sec.

Monday: Singapore Polytechnic Library

Reflection The library had been extensively renovated in parts and it was clear that considerable thought had gone into the design aspects within the library and it was really nice to see how the various schools had contributed to the hardware and software of the library.  The elephant in the room is their physical location; the library suffers from being an early structure in an old and expanding institution.  One has to wonder what the status is of the library and the librarians on campus. The campus is also undergoing considerable renovation – but the whole concept of what a library is and where it should be has not been challenged.  Definitely a contrast with Ngee Ann and Tanglin. This has implications for its footfall and the emphasis that needs to be put on promoting the library.  It is making use of mobile technology (BYOM sessions) which makes sense given the physical constraints the library faces. In my opinion the library could be far more radical in its outreach with satellite library and satellite librarians and self-checkout or mobile checkout.

Evaluation                                                                                                                    Rating 3/5 The way in which the library was making extensive use of its students abilities and knowledge, was good.

Tuesday: Singapore Management University

Reflection I was interested to hear they had a “compulsory” but non-credit bearing orientation, as the tour leader explained this was definitely a cultural aspect of Singaporean students being compliant and not questioning the enforcement of a policy. While quite a few of the other libraries were using social media as a promotion / academic information platform, SMU libraries used Facebook, 4square and twitter purely for social interaction with students. This is an interesting choice and I assume requires some discipline not to “interfere” by including academic or promotional information. Despite SMU and its library being relatively new they had encountered problems with physical preservation related to the Singapore climate, something that was a theme again later in the trip at the Institute of South East Asian Studies.   Mould is contagious to other books and materials and also creates health and safety problems.  Elimination of mould is costly, and the “obvious” answer of digitisation of those parts of the collection have copyright and ownership issues. I had to consider that some problems don’t have a simple in-house solution that is cost-effective.

Evaluation                                                                                                                  Rating 2/5 While SMU definitely gets the prize for the best roof top view of “old” Singapore I’m not sure the visit had much added value to the tour. Although they did teach me how to use Google scholar with links to CSU library which was really valuable.

Tuesday:    National Library Board – Reference & Public Library

Reflection As the NLB is a government run organisation I was struck by just how innovative and artistic they were in their displays and particularly the design and conception of the children’s library as a “green” space.   It appears that the government places a lot of emphasis on the availability and accessibility of books to the population by the employment of the hub and spoke method – with 3 large regional libraries and 25 local libraries, some of which (10) are located in shopping centres (following their opening hours). The reference section was very impressive but also very imposing, as was the exhibition space. As a Singaporean resident I had actually never ventured up to this part of the library which made me think about the role of a library in inviting people into its sanctuary.  Large spaces with high ceilings are aesthetically striking, but studies in airport design for example have shown that people feel less comfortable in them – this is used deliberately in airports, but one would assume that libraries would want the opposite.  The children’s library is a contrast with its cocooning space with low and lowered ceilings.

Evaluation                                                                                                                Rating 4/5 Interesting library, very enthusiastic staff. Nice to see how a government can be behind information and learning and put its money where its mouth is.

Tuesday: National Library Board – Chinatown Library

Reflection We had an interesting discussion on how there never were enough newspapers for the senior citizens visiting the library.  It led me to wonder about how a society goes about meeting the information needs of its elderly.  I have noticed in Hong Kong queues of 100s of pensioners in the early morning in order to get one of the free daily newspapers.   Here one has a physically beautiful library which is well resourced with a special collection and the issue is newspapers which don’t even cost that much.  There is a philosophical question behind this that seems to be a silver thread through libraries throughout the ages which is whether one gives patrons what they want, what they can’t access or afford themselves or what you think they should have.  The UWCSEA visit later in the week added the dimension of giving them what you feel embodies your identity and purpose.

Evaluation                                                                                                                    Rating 4/5 Of course the fact it's a volunteer run library is noteworthy as are the logistics involved. It was nice to see one of the shopping mall libraries and also a special collection and how that was managed.

Wednesday:    Temasek Polytechnic

Reflection According to the library about 70% of students use the library and they monitor unique visitors through a patron tracking system, I’d not heard of this before and I thought it a worthwhile exercise in order to make choices both on the promotion side i.e. do you want this number to be bigger, or is it appropriate, and also to ensure there is congruence between the users and the collection. I liked the fact they used Pinterest for book displays and was generally impressed by their (student designed) signage and interactive booth.  It was clear they didn’t have the level of budget of the other polytechnics, but were doing a good job with what they had.

Evaluation                                                                                                                    Rating 2/5 The added value was as a contrast /foil to the other 2 polytechnics that had been renovated more recently and were better (and privately topped up) resourced. I’d rather have spent more time at UWCSEA or the library supply centre.

Wednesday: United World College of SE Asia - EAST

Reflection The presentation focused on the philosophy of library / spatial design and building community identity through a collection.  Since the library was purpose built for a new campus of a school with an existing ideology and value system, the librarian could incorporate both the latest thinking about library design and have a chance to build a collection from scratch.  This was a unique opportunity to see how such thinking translated to very practical aspects such as having classes of 22 pupils throughout the school resulted in tables, rooms and chairs seating exactly 22 people right down to applying the theories of Thornburg on learning spaces to the physical space. As far as collection development was concerned, the school mission, educational goals and multi-cultural diverse community were used in guiding the acquisition of materials and the consideration of their format in a very idealistic way with careful consideration particularly to the concepts of culture.  I found it made me think a lot about how identity of an organisation is expressed – in contrast - the Tanglin Trust Schools very clearly identify themselves as “the British” school in Singapore.

Evaluation                                                                                                                     Rating 5/5 Would have liked to spend more time at UWCSEA for more esoteric and philosophical discussion.

Wednesday:   National Library Board Supply Centre

Reflection The informative talk raised a number of ideas and discussion of the current trends around the way in which material is catalogued, tagged and linked to other information.  The contrast between the “think tank” nature of the office doing the acquisition and describing and the back-end “industrial machine” of the physical processing, distribution and storage system was fascinating.

Evaluation                                                                                                                    Rating 3/5 Visit was a little rushed.

Wednesday: Singapore Press Holdings

Reflection SPH had a couple of aspects that differed from other libraries, including the need to be open and available for longer hours, participation in the editorial meetings, a very proactive approach to the information needs of their ‘clients’ and the merging of the English and Chinese libraries. I personally have difficulty in tagging, storing and finding material in my limited family video footage, so I could identify with the issues of Razor TV where they add 40 terabytes of footage every 3 weeks and need to cut around 70% of it and tag and store the rest using a new content management system.  I felt there was a little bit of disjoint between the questions I had on information retrieval – particularly from the visual and audio-visual side and the presentation which was more focussed on traditional print and picture media.

Evaluation                                                                                                                                 Rating 4/5 Interesting to see a corporate library after the other academic /public libraries.

Thursday:  Nanyang Technological University – Lee Wee Nam Library

Reflection I was surprised at the library response to the topic / question of Open Access, it appears to be an area that none of the libraries are prepared to take a strong stand on, either morally or conceptually – I’m not sure who drives the debate in Singapore, the academic institution, its libraries or the central government.  It is interesting they had a special promotion / outreach program and I was impressed by their personalisation of approach to the students and the good response it received. Each library we visited seems to have spent a lot of time and effort into ensuring that the libraries are accessible and welcoming to the students.  They also made it very clear that their focus was on the students and not faculty, something I’ve not heard verbalised so strongly in other university libraries. In terms of reference librarians there was a strong presence of subject specialists, which I can imagine is well received by students particularly the technical areas. Since I’m doing INF406 Information Sources and Services I found learning about the ways in which they were creating subject guides by the subject librarians, the assistance with metadata, taxonomy and website and blog design very worthwhile.

Evaluation                                                                                                                    Rating 3/5 It was good to include a university academic rather than vocational library. I’d include it over Temasek for a more balanced visit.

Thursday:  Institute of South East Asian Studies

Reflection One has to question the continued existence of this type of niche library that appears to duplicate the collection of other institutions and struggle both with preservation of its materials and its own identity.  It will take a very strong and politically and academically connected individual to make something of the potential of this library. Browsing the shelves one could see that a huge weeding exercise would have to be undertaken – for example having the encyclopaedia Britannica and various yearbooks is very questionable for such a specialised collection on a very limited budget.

Evaluation                                                                                                                    Rating 3/5 Interesting from the preservation – physical collection and existence – aspect.

Summary Reflection (What you learned overall)

I wish I had done this tour before I started my course as I learnt so much.  On the other hand, having completed a couple of courses, it made all the subjects I’ve been doing in abstract fall into place and make me even more enthusiastic about my career change. The most interesting “take away” for me was the idea of organisation identity and philosophy and how that translates into collection development, space design and the staffing of the library.  While most of the libraries had many things in common – quiet spaces, communal space, collections of print and digital material, it is fascinating how each differentiated themselves and carved a niche in the organisation of which they were part, and collectively as a part of the Singaporean society as a whole.