E World Order: The NLB Experience

The second of the three invited speakers at the Elsevier LibraryConnect seminar was Mr. Wan Wee Pin from the National Library Board of Singapore. He gave a very interesting talk about what the National Library Board has been doing to improve its services, and what it plans to do in the near future.

For Wan Wee Pin Web 2.0 means a fundamental change in understanding and using the media. “Everyone is in charge, no one is in control.” This way of thinking requires a significant shift in the mindset of the Singapore government, I imagine. (Actually I think most societies and senior managers, indeed many people today would find this whole everyone is in charge idea rather confronting.)

According to Wee Pin another aspect of the Web 2.0 phenomenon is the fact that access is the key (not validity – echoing a point Daviess Menefee made). Wee Pin posed a question to the audience: how do you get your site listed among the top ten results of a hit list? Even if you are an expert your site may appear very low on the list, which means your site can be overlooked (for most people tend to just look at the first few results on any hit list).

Web 2.0 also means a “new marketplace”. The most popular floor in the National Library building is level five, which has an open, comfy study area. People wait in queue for the library to open to use this floor! Interestingly, despite being right in the middle of the library and having easy access to the collection and to librarians, Wee Pin discovered that users of the level five area would rather just “Google it” rather than ask library staff for assistance. (I found myself nodding at this. I think the students and academic staff I serve turn to Google as their first resort, too.) How do we reach these consumers? Wee Pin suggests that rather than trying to change users’ habits, the library can change its habits and approach, and meet users where they are – in the Web, using the tools people enjoy using.

Part of the NLB strategy has been to use blogs to reach its clientele. Initially only a couple of NLB staff had blogs – unofficially – and senior management were very uncomfortable about the fact that they were visibly librarians on their blogs. They were asked to sign non disclosure agreements. He showed us screenshots of the Rambling Librarian (Ivan is currently in South Africa attending the IFLA conference I see) and Damien’s Treasure Trove of Useless Facts. Gradually however the government (and senior management) realised that they couldn’t stop people using this medium. NLB management realised they could start using blogging too, as a way to reach the people – so Ivan’s and Damien’s blogs were endorsed!

Some of the approaches the NLB have taken include:

• Blogs. I am a fan of the High Browse Online blog in particular.
• An SMS reference service. Apparently everyone in Singapore has a mobile phone. Wee Pin gave us an anecdote about his parents who he said are technologically illiterate – yet they each have two mobile phones!
• Colorzip technology. This is something I had not heard of before. For the NLB this means the use of posters with specially encoded colour “barcodes” which can be read by mobiles and PDAs and which allow the downloading of information. (See this definition.)
• Learning Journeys. The Singaporean population is currently accessing information using a wide variety of media such as video, podcasts, and vodcasts, rather than reading – and are definitely not just using the traditional print sources. Wee Pin said that the NLB recognises this and is moving away from the written word and will look at ways of providing information in as many formats as possible.

Thus, their philosophy is “Don’t wait for them. Go to them.”

Wee Pin suggests a couple of guiding principles when using this go-to-where-your-clients-are approach:

1. be entertaining
2. find your niche (the NLB’s is Singapore, information about Singapore.)

The NLB has also tried to make their webpages “GYM-enabled” – that is, optimised so that they are findable by Google, Yahoo and MSN. Wee Pin also advised us to use existing platforms where available, rather than reinventing the wheel.

New initiatives for the NLB:

• Their website is currently undergoing a major revamp, with new site launched in 2008. Interestingly (controversially?) they are changing their domains from .gov.sg (Singapore government sites) to .com. This removes the need for them to conform to strict guidelines for appearance and so on. Three new websites will be launched. (I didn’t note what they will be, I think I was too blown away pondering this change of domain.) CORRECTION: Isaak Kwok (one of the team working on one of these new websites) says: “We are not using .com domain for the three websites. We are just dropping the .gov for two of the sites leaving it just .sg. It makes it a little easier for people to remember. And we are still using the .gov.sg domain for the corporate website.” Thanks Isaak!
• A presence in Second Life. Currently there are around 3000 Singaporeans using SL. They hope to provide links to all sorts of services and programmes using SL. (He noted that there has been a lot of resistance to this idea among NLB librarians.) He also posed an interesting idea which I am not sure I should blog about as he indicated it had not been officially sanctioned yet (might check with him first).
• Digital literacy – especially for older citizens
• Technical literacy – for librarians. He emphasised that most of the technologies are very easy to use and that all librarians need to get on board (no argument from me here). An example he gave was of the need for librarians to record events and speeches at libraries using a video camera – some of them had no idea how to use a video camera, so there’s “lots of new things to learn. They just have to learn”, he said.
• Network of specialists – using a wiki to provide information. Librarians begin the pages, and allow the public to edit them. A paradigm shift indeed.

An interesting aside: Wee Pin showed a slide entitled Web 2.0 “Broad” Band of Members, which was a group of library staff who were all interested in the new technologies and who got together “underground”, unofficially, to talk, share and play. Then when the NLB realised that they needed to use the technology and said they needed to form a group to work together – the group already existed! It has been useful to have support and to be able to talk with others who are also interested and who see the value in the technology.

Very inspirational – and I don’t think I am the only one who thought so, I heard others say so during lunch. What can we do in Western Australia to get our library services to be as forward thinking and as engaged as Singapore’s?

There’s another inspirational talk left to blog: tomorrow.