DHP Year 4 Language Arts

Project Work
Individual Written Report

“Find it”
– Your Trusted Sources
“A campaign to showcase and bring greater visibility to the reference services
and rich resources at the National Library”

– From the Official “Find It” Website

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction 3

2. About the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library 4

3. Campaign Rationale & Information 5

3.1 Objective 5

3.2 Campaign Length 5

3.3 Target Audience 5

4. Campaigning Strategies/Methodologies 6

4.1 Public Seminars and Programmes 6

4.2 Partnership with Expertise Organisations 6

4.3 Launching of SMS Reference Service 7

5. Campaign Analysis 8

5.1 Resulting Effects 8

5.1.1 Library Visitorship Statistics 8

5.1.2 Library Enquiries Statistics 9

5.2 Meeting of Objectives 10

5.3 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Campaign 10

5.4 Areas of Improvement 10

6. Conclusion 11

7. Bibliography 12

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Introduction

“Find It”
‘Find It’ is a campaign organised by the National Library Board which aims to introduce resources
and enquiry services of the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library to different groups of the public.
Through this campaign, the National Library aims to encourage people to treat the Reference Library
as their primary trusted source of information, instead of solely the Internet, whenever they need
answers to their enquiries and research questions.

It will be meaningful to see how successful this campaign is in promoting the use of the National
Library’s resources to various groups of the public and encouraging people to view the Library as not
just simply a place for reading & borrowing books but a hub for research and information too.

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2. About the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library

The Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, located at the National

Library Building, occupies seven floors, each containing
reference materials, mainly books, aimed for research and
learning for local and overseas researchers, professionals and
academics. It was opened on 22 July 2005 and named after Dr
Lee Kong Chian, in honour of the Lee’s Foundation’s $60 million
donation to the National Library Board. With an area of 14,265
square metres, it has a collection of over 530,000 print and non-
print materials. These items, however, cannot be borrowed.

The Library provides reference services onsite, or via email, SMS, telephone and fax. Other facilities
include access to electronic databases and document delivery service. Microfilm, reprography and
audio-visual services for viewing special materials are also available. The library has wireless access
to the Internet too, as well as the use of reading & meeting rooms.

Collections

Level 7 - Social Sciences & Humanities, Science and Technology

Level 8 - The Arts and Business

Level 9 - Chinese, Malay and Tamil

Level 10 - Donors' Collections, Asian Children's

Level 11 - Singapore and Southeast Asian

Levels 12 and 13 - Rare Materials (restricted access)

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3. Campaign Rationale & Information

3.1 Objective:

“Find It” aims to:

-Promote the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library as an informative hub for research and referencing
to various groups of the public, mainly professionals, researchers and tertiary students.

-Encourage people to treat the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library (LKCRL) as their primary trusted
source of information when they need answers to their reference and research questions.

3.2 Campaign Running Period

April 2006 to May 2006; a period of 2 months

3.3 Target Audience

The targeted groups of the public fall broadly into 4 following communities:

-Heritage

-Involves researchers, heritage enthusiasts, teachers and curriculum planners of Singapore history
and National Education

-Business

-Involves businessmen, market researchers, consultants and business students, entrepreneurs

-Design

-Involves designers, Art students, fashion enthusiasts

-Education

-Involves teachers, educators, Academics and Tertiary students

The NLB chose to focus in these 4 communities as it felt that its collections and resources during that
time could play strongly to these areas and hoped to promote the possible value that can be derived
by these communities in utilizing their resources available for research and reference.

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4. Campaigning Strategies/Methodologies

4.1 Public Seminars and Programmes

The National Library held a few talks and activities for its target participants that aim to present a
broad overview and background of the collections in the 4 areas it is focusing on: Heritage, Business,
Design and Education. Most of these events were held at the National Library itself.

These programmes include:

 Information Literacy Programmes & Collection Tours

This is a series of talks that introduces the various collections and resources of the Lee Kong Chian
Reference Library to the public. The sessions will also demonstrate, through different scenarios, how
the resources can be used and participants will learn useful search strategies to enable them to seek
and find information more effectively.

Other seminars and talks also include:

 FIND Heritage
 FIND Business
 FIND Design
 FIND Education

Each seminar is meant for each of the 4 target groups of the public, and through these programmes,
NLB gives an overview on how the resources at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library can be used to
assist them in their research under the key areas of heritage, business, design and education.

4.2 Partnership with expertise organisations

During the campaign period, the NLB partnered up with 16 other organisations with
expertise in information of mainly the 4 targeted segments of Heritage, Business, Design
and Education, such as Bloomberg, SIA and even local institutions such as Nanyang
Polytechnic to organise programmes for the public. Experts and Subject Specialists from
these organisations were also invited as panellists and facilitators in the seminars to present
in their areas of expertise, such as Singapore heritage, business and finance.

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4.3 Launching of SMS Reference Service

Launched during the campaign period, this service allows Customers to SMS their reference queries
to the National Library on their mobile phones free of charge. This service also adds to the suite of
email, fax, phone and onsite reference services currently provided by reference librarians and give
customers an extra option to pose their queries when on the move.

Sample SMS queries:

 Info on history of Hoover Park Estate in Singapore (related to the Heritage Collection)
 Info about the beauty industry in Middle East. Where can I find the info and resources?
(related to the Business collection)
 I want information on early childhood education, including journal articles. (related to
the Education collection)
 What is the role of design in Adidas? What are some of their famous products and
what is their design significance? (related to the Design collection)

-Taken from the NLB’s official “Find It” website

As quoted from the NLB newsletter, the campaign hopes that by launching this service, the NLB is
able to bring its patrons “closer to their resources and bridge the gap between the resource persons
and the end-user, wherever they are”, and to display “the true value of a library -- to be available to
users wherever they are”.

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5. Campaign Analysis
5.1 Resulting Effects

The campaign resulted in an increase in visitorship and enquiries posted to the Lee Kong Chian
Reference Library, as seen from the following statistics:

5.1.1 Visitorship Statistics from 2005 to 2006

As seen from the above statistics, visitorship to the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library increased by
149, 468 from one year prior to the campaign period to the year when the campaign took place.
Number of visitors of the Reference Library also shifted up from 8 th to 6th highest among all libraries
from 2005 to 2006. However, the amount of change of the Reference Library is ranked 10 th out of 23
libraries (exclusive of Bishan Community Library), which gives it just a slightly above average placing
in terms of change.

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5.1.2 Enquiries Statistics from 2005 to 2006

From the above statistics, the number of enquiries to the Reference Library increased by 20,146
from 2005 to 2006, which is again, one year prior to the campaign to the year which the campaign
took place. The increase in enquiries to the Reference Library gives it the 4 th highest placing among
all the libraries. This change of value is actually quite impressive as 10 other libraries had a drop in
enquiries in 2006. However, it is also important to note that Lee Kong Chian Reference Library is still
not the top source of information for questions among all the libraries. Its own placing for enquiries
is 15th in 2005 and 11th in 2006, both which are not even in the top 10.

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5.2 Meeting of Campaign Objectives

Based on the statistics in 5.1.1 and 5.1.2, the “Find It” campaign has, to a relatively large extent
managed to meet its objective of promoting the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library as a hub for
research and referencing to the public and encouraging people to treat the Lee Kong Chian
Reference Library (LKCRL) as their primary trusted source of information when they need answers to
their reference and research questions. These can be seen from the statistics as there is a prominent
increase in the number of people visiting the Reference Library and posting of enquiries.

While the campaign has managed to create a positive effect in achieving the desired goals, it did not
produce exceptional results. Among the libraries, the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library still loses out
to the others in terms of, for example, the enquiries received. This indicates room for improvement
in making the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library as a “primary trusted source of information”.

5.3 Strengths & Weaknesses of the Campaign

Strengths:

 Organisation of public programmes such as talks is a good way of promoting and also gives
the target audience a broad overview on how the Library’s resources and databases can be
utilised to help them in their own research.
 Partnership with organisations specialising in information service from the 4 targeted
segments of Heritage, Design, Business and Education, such as Bloomberg, allows not only
sharing of expertise but also further promotes the Library as a trusted and informative hub
for research.
 Launch of free SMS service is effective in providing a convenient platform for users to post
their enquiries to the library. This is also a stepping stone in encouraging users to treat NLB
as a good source of information.

Weaknesses:

 Little advertising was done. Only certain businesses, corporations and tertiary institutes
knew about the event.
 All of the campaign’s programmes were only held once, and in the National Library. Talks
could be held more than once and also in other locations to reach out to more people.

5.4. Areas of improvement

 Better promotion of the campaign could have been created by raising awareness through
advertising in the media, e.g. television adverts and posters
 Talks can be held more than once and in separate locations to attract a greater audience.
Other locations such as tertiary institutes and corporate buildings with auditoriums could
have been used as well to spread the campaign’s message further.

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6. Conclusion
The “Find It” campaign is relatively successful in promoting the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library as
a research hub through its methodologies of organising public programmes and launching of a free
of charge SMS enquiry-posting service, which is seen from the increase in visitorship and number of
enquiries to the Reference Library in the statistics.

However, there is still room for improvement for the campaign to reach its peak performance,
especially in the area of advertising and raising public awareness.

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Bibliography

1. Kim, T. J. (2006). NLB SMS Reference Service. Retrieved Feb 2009, from Clapping Tree's Web
2.0: http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/04/nlb-sms-reference-service/

2. National Library Board. (2006, April). "Find It" Home. Retrieved Feb 2009, from "Find It" NLB:
http://campaigns.nlb.gov.sg/index.htm

3. National Library Board. (2007). Enquiries Statistical Report for FY2005 to FY2006. Retrieved
Feb 2009, from Our NLB Annual Report 06/07:
http://www.nlb.gov.sg/annualreport/fy06/stats04.htm

4. National Library Board. (2006, April). SMS NLB and “Find It”! . Retrieved Feb 2009, from
Newsletter@the Library:
http://newsletter.nlb.gov.sg/back_jun_jul06/features/active/index09.asp

5. National Library Board. (2007). Visitorship Statistical Report for FY2005 to FY2006. Retrieved
Feb 2009, from Our NLB Annual Report 06/07:
http://www.nlb.gov.sg/annualreport/fy06/stats03.htm

6. Raffles Design Institute. (2006, April). National Library Board launched "Find IT" Campaign.
Retrieved April 2009, from Raffles Design Istitute, What's New: http://www.raffles-design-
institute.edu.sg/whatsnew/findit.htm

7. Wang, D. (2006). Official Launch of "Find It" Campaign. Retrieved Feb 2009, from Tresure
Trove of Useless Information: http://damienwang.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html

8. WLIC durban. (2007). Managing National Libraries in an interconnecting future: insights on

an inclusive reference service and networking - the Singapore experience.

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