The Event Horizon

1. Editorial: The New Library

As I mentioned in my editorial last month, the Stanford Road National Library has reopened. Being the kind of person I am, I took the opportunity to go down and take a look and see what kind of improvements have been made to it.

From the outside, it looks the same, except for a huge sign painted on the side of the building, proudly proclaiming it to be a National Library. But once inside, you'll see that they've changed a lot of the interior.

Before the renovation, visitors would be faced by a turnstile, followed by a rather narrow corridor where you would queue up to return books as well as to get into the main section of the library. This has now, mercifully, vanished. A standard upright magnetic detector now stands at the entrance and you'll see a wide passageway leading into a much altered main section.

The first floor is now divided into three main sections. One is a `resource centre' for students only, the second is a section for children. The third part is the main section, made up of fiction (squeezed, somehow, into an apparently smaller section of the library) and non-fiction sections, occupying much of the rest of the first floor. A number of computer terminals are scattered in this section, equally divided between those used to access the library catalogue and those used to access the internet and on-line databases. The terminals for accessing the internet and databases are pay terminals, done using standard smartcards.

The second floor of the library is now a multimedia centre. Also using smartcards as payment, you can access the library's visual/audio medias (laser disc, DVD, CD) as well as use them to access the Internet. I only flipped through the catalogue if audio/video media at the library but I'm already planning my weekends to go and watch the few good ones I've missed in my youth (like ``Citizen Kane'').

The third floor is the library's reference centre for adults and contains 'red marked' books and magazines. Again, internet/database and library catalogue terminals are to be found here. The various magazines are now placed into individual magazine stands. Previously, they only only laid flat on shelves, leading to a lot of untidy shelves.

My impression of the library is that is seems to contain less books displayed than before. But this is just an impression; I didn't go and count the actual number of books. From what I understand, shelving may still be going on and I can believe it as a number of shelves are still relatively empty of books. However, it feels more spacious than before and even has a number of Border-like seating areas. The large number of computer terminals around is a good thing as I used to remember the times I spent queueing to use the terminals to access the catalogues.

The open area inside the library has now been turn into a cafe, with open and sheltered seating areas. Since this area is not protected by magnetic gates, you could bring out unborrowed books to read. I have no idea what will happen if you spill drinks on the books but odds are you'll have to pay for it.

So, was the long wait for the re-opening of the library worth it? It looks like it is. Books appear easier to find than before (but let's wait a few months and see) and the seating places are better designed. On the whole, I like what I see.

So, pay a visit to the library when you're free. If you want another opinion, try to find the article written by Sor Fern last month just before the library re-opened.

Footnote: when I went home, I found to my surprise that my hometown had acquired a new library building. Previously, the library collection was located in a penghulu's (malay for local leader) place but the new one is a dedicated library. I paid it a visit and was pleasantly surprised to see a small but significant collection of books in both Malay and English in it. Of course, it cannot compare to libraries in Singapore but I find its mere presence gratifying.

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