library@orchard is closing its doors on 30 Nov and there’s a whole lot of work to be done before then!
We’re looking for volunteers to help us with the packing of selected books from 27 Nov to 4 Dec.
You need to be able to commit a minimum of 5 hours throughout the day. You can choose to volunteer on only 1 day or on all 7 days! We’ll love to have you (really… we need you).
If you’re interested to volunteer, please email occl@nlb.gov.sg with your name, NRIC, contact details, and preferred date and time. We’ll get back to you!
*Update: For those library-friendly people who are already existing Friends of the Library, you can also sign up to help library@orchard through the FOL website. (Thanks Valerie for the reminder!)
I’ve been thinking. (thinking leads to spewing. spewing leads to long posts… have patience ok, dear reader)
If you read this blog, you’ll probably know that this is the library@orchard’s blog, we are closing on Nov 30 2007, and the library@orchard is a public library located in Ngee Ann City, Singapore.
If you read more of this blog, you’ll know that we’re unique in that we’re trying to capture an age group, which according to a survey done years ago, did not really use the public libraries. And that group is: people aged btw 18-35.
According to said survey, this group of people “drop out” of the libraries after they leave school and they don’t come back until they have kids (it seems it’s more impt for kids to have good reading habits but it’s less impt for adults?).
To sidetrack abit, according to Jillian’s totally non-scientific observations, we can also add ”increasing decrease in the time available for reading” and “increasing disposable income to buy reading material” as some reasons for non-usage.
Anyway, I was actually gonna post about youths and the library!
Amongst all of the updates is a film screening this Wednesday night (14 Nov, 7-9pm) on two independent film projects by local journalists - I Love Malaya and The Mitre Spell. You’ll also get a chance to hear how these busy journalists go beyond their regular work and produce independent films in a panel discussion.
I Love Malaya is a short film about the exiled former members of the Malayan Communists Party who want to return home, but can’t. In having to write a post on it, I did a search for the film on youtube (in between searching for Jolin Tsai videos) and watched a newsreel version clip of it.
Reading the film sypnosis, I thought it would be a film about guerilla soldiers hiding out in the forests waging war over a political idealogy. You know, boring political debates and military figures walking around. Instead, the exiles are all in their 70s and 80s and are definitely not wearing uniforms. Although we grow up in a country where communism is a dirty word, I found myself starting to feel sorry for these elderly people who left their family, home, and loved ones 50 years ago, and have never been able to return.
In the film, you hear and see many Malaysians who feel that this is just punishment for communists The magic of the film is that it manages to humanize these ”communists”. It doesn’t touch on whether communism is right or wrong but shows you and makes you feel the plight of exile.
Watch it on youtube first if you want, but there will be a panel discussion with the filmmakers on Wednesday and I’ll love to hear what they have to say about their works. How many of us (ok, me) would love to be able to capture and evoke such emotion, but just don’t have the bloody talent?
Anyway, the countdown has started (17 more days!) to our last day at Ngee Ann City. We can’t bear to go out without a blast and have been working day, night, and early mornings to offer as many programmes and events as we can in our last 17 days here.
library@orchard is 8 years old, but if you’ve only found out in the last few months that we exist - it’s not too late! I repeat, it’s not too late!
Yup, it’s finally here, the end of November looms ahead. The winds of change are in the air and before I start spouting yet more tacky lines about time and tide waiting for no man and the inevitability of mortal existence….. Let’s get straight to the point.
WE ARE CLOSING ON NOVEMBER THE 30TH and WE ARE HAVING A PARTY!
and you’re invited.
Please RSVP (asap!) if you are coming. Drop us an email at occl@nlb.gov.sg and don’t forget to let us know the number of peeps you’re coming with!
So what have our citizen reporters been up to for the past week?
Donna and Christine visited us again (I know cos I saw their passes in our pass drawer! ;)), not sure what’s gonna be up but Donna posted a detailed write-up of our briefing here. And I realised from reading her blog, that Jean has actually met her online before! So fortituous! (go on, ask me what tt means ;p) Hehehe.
Jean and Alice also came down last weekend to conduct interviews with some of our users and posted this. Makes me wonder, how many people who come to the library regularly are still unaware that we’re closing? Maybe it’s bcos students often use the library as a study lounge rather than for our materials or programmes etc, so to them it’s just another place and they don’t really bother to read the posters or find out what’s happening? Students out there, please feel free to disagree! ;p
In my next post, I’ll take a look at the really cool posts by Joel and Kenneth. They’ve got loads of stuff!
By the way, we’ve got a listing of events at the library on our right hand links, check out November for upcoming happenings. There’ll be a talk on the emotions and intelligence of animals this Sunday (11th Nov).
To finish off, we’ve got a few new recruits on our blogroll and they are…. Ceneple, Ian and Priscilla! Ceneple (who my boss referred to as “see-ni-pple” *smirk* but is actually pronounced as “scene-ple”) is planning to jot down some of her personal memories of the library as part of the project.
Also, there may be more cos people are still leaving comments about joining this movement. The answer is YES U CAN! Just email Jillian at occl@nlb.gov.sg
Just this Tues, we held our ‘brief’ briefing for folks who were interested in helping to blog about the closing of library@orchard. Honestly, we (the Rambling Librarian and I) were a little afraid that no one would turn up and we would have to eat all the cakes ourselves end up consoling ourselves ;p
They were a fun group who were passionate about the library (it’s nice to feel loved) as well as blogging. Ivan completed his official powerpoint presentation in about 6 mins and the rest of the time was spent on QnA, bouncing off ideas and random chitchat. Oh yah, and eating cakes! For more pics, go forth to Ivan’s Flickr.
In fact, they’re so speedy that they’ve already blogged about the briefing. Wah! Am truly touched.
We hope you had fun and will continue enjoying yourselves blogging about the library. I’ve added your sites to our blog roll and we’ll be featuring your posts regularly. And thanks also for mentioning that we librarians are somewhat-not-boring! heehee.
If there’s anyone who’s still interested in being a part of this, do check out the “official powerpoint” at this link.
Next, drop us an email (occl@nlb.gov.sg) with your full name, NRIC No. and blog/website and also any queries you may have. We’ll get back to you with a confirmation email.
There’s so many things that happened in the last 10 days that even as I’m typing this, I’m not sure where to start!
On our birthday weekend (20/21 st Oct), many people contributed to our Dreamwall by painting, sticking, printing, splashing their art onto our glass panels. I particularly liked the statement that said: “If I exhibit flashes of brilliance, would you find it fascinating?”… Used it for our previous Call for Citizen Reporters post!
Check out our flickr set for pics that I took using a camera phone, will upload some better ones that a colleague took, later.
Some folks blogged about their encounters with our artistic experiment: John Yeo
Joel (btw, I still can’t find his Mandy Moore “piece”!)
Then on the 21st, we had our cooking experts, Mdm Koh-Heng and Aishah demo Jeput Jeput and Ondeh Ondeh. And the chio trio of foodbloggers (Cheryl, Denise and Julia) entertained the audience with cooking adventures and amusing food anecdotes.
Check out Julia’s pics and post about the event! We even had a member of the audience give us a tip about how to avoid introducing transfat into our food: Do not heat the oil past the smoking point!
Someone also brought up an interesting point on how the food bloggers would react if someone said that they’d followed some instructions on their blog and a disaster occurred. I think the consensus was that, the bloggers have personally tried out the recipes/techniques/restaurants and they post their experiences on their blogs. Readers make the choice of taking that information and interpreting it for themselves. The bloggers also mentioned that they do get requests for help about the stuff they post and usually they’ll try their best to help the readers ”troubleshoot”.
Anyway, we then ended the day with food (what else right?) and a Birthday Cake! For some strange reason, the cake had the text: “Graduation” on its side… Maybe it’s the model number? ;p But we took it to mean that the library is “graduating to better things”!
Lovely goodies to be given out this weekend. It’s the last weekend of October, our birthday month is coming to a close. And the D-date of 30 Nov seems to be looming closer.
Halloween’s coming! And don’t you think the library@orchard colours are very much in the Halloween mood? I love our colours and I do hope they are retained for the new libraries in Orchard.
Hullabaloo is back at the library as well on 26th Oct (Sat), with local bands rocking it out (and scaring our neighbours) from 5-7pm.
I could scare you further by telling you some things about how the meat you eat lands on your plate (or you can read it yourself here). Instead though, learn how you can make a healthy vegetarian dish that serves to reduce global warming as well! Very versatile dish it is. Join the Vegetarian Society in a demonstration of their famous Global Cooling Pie on 27th Oct (Sun), 3-4.30pm.
As always, more details can be found under our Happenings listings, and we hope to see you at the library@orchard!
Yup, Lynn has covered them in this post, but here’re more details.
Tomorrow (Sat 20th Oct), in addition to the concert by Genie and friends, we also have Chris Yap (he’s the guy that did circa2007) and friends coming down to the library@orchard. They’ll be “remaking” the library space by painting/writing/<insert artistic endeavor here> on some of our glass panels. The thing is, YOU (yes YOU!) can join in too! Pop by anytime from 12pm onwards to leave your mark on us. Materials will be provided.
On Sunday (21st Oct, birthday day!), we’ll be having our staff demos. The lovely Mrs Koh-Heng will be demo-ing Jemput Jemput or Banana Fritters from 2-2.3opm and Supreme Instructor Aishah will unleash her Ondeh Ondeh at abt 4.45 - 5.15pm. Between these, ie from 3-4.30pm, we have an up close and personal session with Cheryl (thebakerwhocooks), Julia (AromaCookery), and Denise (Hungry Hostelite). Get fanatical about food with these 3 fantastic floggers ie food bloggers. There’ll be munchies during the session and also a birthday cake at the end!
And we’re still having our weekend promos, with double the no. of movie vouchers to be given away on Sunday! See you there this weekend!
Halloween’s coming! And don’t you think the library@orchard colours are very much in the Halloween mood? I love our colours and I do hope they are retained for the new libraries in Orchard.