Director's Column

Do you know that maps on Singapore were already in existence as far back as the 16th century? The National Library, Singapore recently acquired one of these map. This an early 17th century map, published in 1607, which shows a close-up view of Singapore and its surrounding region. An uncoloured map measuring 324 x 255mm in size, it shows the southern coast of ‘Sine Pora” (i.e. Singapore), “Straet van Sinai Pore (Straits of Singapore) and Valsch Sine Pora (False Straits of Singapore).

A slice of Singapore’s history can be gleaned from these maps and the poster collection at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library. The poster colection started from 1969 and now comprises over 4,000 posters in the four official languages covering a wide range of topics related to Singapore such language, etiquette, health, environment, reading and literacy, and the performing arts. The collection is a closed access collection and is available for consultation upon request at the Information Counter located at Level 11 of the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library. Do contact our reference librarians at https://reference.nlb.gov.sg/ if you are keen to find out more. We welcome donations and gifts of Singapore posters of all kinds.

In this issue, we profile another of Singapore’s literary pioneers, Mr Harun Aminurrashid. Mr Harun was the editor of Malay newspapers and magazines such as “Hiburan”, “Mutiara”, “Melayu Raya”, “Mingguan Melayu” and “Medan Sastera”. He was awarded the Certificate of Merit from Dictionary of International Biography, London in 1968 to commemorate his significant contributions to Malay literature and was posthumously awarded the “Anumerta Tun Seri Lanang” by the Singapore Council of Malay Language in 1995. Mr Harun is one of the authors highlighted in the Singapore Literary Pioneers Gaiety at Level 12 of the National Library.

You will recall that we had successfully launched the Lee Kong Chian Research Fellowship programme a year ago. Our fifth Lee Kong Chian Research Fellow, Mr Peng Weibu, recently completed his research programme. In this issue, please read an extract of Mr Peng’s paper presented soon after the completion of his research.

The National Library warmly welcomes three new Lee Kong Chian Research Fellows: Mr Kuik Cheng-Chwee, Mr Tay Thiam Chye and Mr Leander Seah. The Research Fellowship aims to encourage research into various aspects of Asian content to enrich the library’s strong Asia-centric collections and resources. The dosing date for the next Fellowship programme is 31 August 2007. The brochure and application form are available for download at https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/about-us/careers/research-fellowships.

Moving on, I am happy to announce two new research publications that were recently launched by the National Library at a colloquia on “Managing Regional Change: Singapore in a Larger Asia. The first, entitled “National Directory of Scholars” profiles 325 researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences disciplines in Singapore. The second, ‘Statistical Snapshots of Asia-Pacific Countries’ provides a detailed comparative analysis of key socio-economic indicators of 14 Asia-Pacific countries. For more details, please contact the Publishing and Research Services Division, National Library at this email address, </a>https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/services/Reference-and-Research-Services.

I am also happy to highight two international library conferences jointly organised by the National Library Board that will be held in August and October this year. The first is on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, which will be held from 27–31 August 2007. The conference will bring together world-renowned specialists from the networking and digital library research communities, knowledge management, e-govemment and the public sector information as well as the library community. This year’s theme is “Application Profiles: Theory and Practice”, featuring keynote speakers Johannes Keizer from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and Zhang Xiaoxing from the National Cultural Information Resource Centre of China.

If you are interested to know more about interlending and document supply services, do register for the “10th IFLA ILDS International Conference” to be held from 29–31 October 2007 on the theme “Resource Sharing for the Future, Building Blocks for Success”. Speakers include Mr Mike McGrath, Editor of the Interlending and Document Supply Journal and Mr Mat Pfleger, Head of Sales and Marketing, The British Library, Find out more about this conference at</a>http://www.nlbconference.com/ilds

Happy reading and do keep your comments and feedback corning! We look forward to seeing you at the National Library.

Ms Ngian Lek Choh
Director
National Library