Monday, August 19, 2013

National Library Board of Singapore leads world with library innovation

Over the weekend the library world began to gather in Singapore for the International Federation of Libraries (IFLA) annual conference. The National Library Board of Singapore (NLB) offers state of the art facilities to its customers and leads the region in forward thinking technology, making it an ideal location for IFLA attendees. In addition to participating in the IFLA program, OverDrive has also provided grants enabling 60 delegates to attend the ASEAN caucus and IFLA conference in Singapore.

 

As a world leader in developing their digital collection, NLB understands the importance of providing a variety of content in formats that can be accessed and discovered by their users in new and inventive ways. This has led to a number of initiatives, including partnerships with OverDrive and the U.S. embassy. When OverDrive launched NLB's Next Generation website in June 2013, they saw a circulation increase of 100% compared with the previous June.

 

OverDrive has worked closely with NLB to enhance the user experience by providing an OverDrive Media Station for in-library discovery, creating the first branded version of OverDrive Media Console and adding the Simplified Chinese language translation to their user interface. NLB is also planning to integrate OverDrive's APIs in their library OPAC to make content discovery even easier for customers. These enhancements, combined with their robust digital collection of nearly 70,000 titles (including 350 titles created by local authors from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies), have led to an average of 28,000 checkouts and 1,700 new patron registrations per month. You can learn more about NLB's collection here: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/nlb-s-ebook-collection/763294.html

 

The U.S. Embassy in Singapore has also contributed to NLB's growth, having donated hundreds of eBooks as part of a "sponsored collection". Additionally, they recently donated 400 eReaders for patron use to provide access to digital titles for more customers.

 

All of these innovations are be on display as the library world gathers in Singapore for IFLA's annual conference through August 22nd.

 

Adam Sockel is a Marketing Communication Specialist with OverDrive 

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