Audiovisual Services at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library

Background

The fields of library and information science are changing and growing rapidly especially in the past thirty years. Technological advancement has created a new wave of audiovisual products in the market such as videocassette discs (VCDs) and digital video discs (DVDs).

Started in 1983 when the Arts Resource Centre was set up at the Reference Services Division, National Library, the Audiovisual Collection in the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library has grown to about 20,000 items in the four official languages. It has become an important research resource that complements the print collections to meet the informational and reference needs of library patrons.

Materials in the Audiovisual Collection are available for browsing at the Singapore and Southeast Asian Collections on Level 11. Library patrons may use any of the 10 dedicated stations in the Audiovisual Room on a first come first served basis. The Audiovisual Service is available from 10.00 am to 9.00 pm daily except public holidays.

Service Provided

The service is categorised into: Heritage Audiovisual Service, Audiovisual for Learning and Training and Audiovisual Service On-demand. A wide and diverse range of audiovisual materials such as videotapes, compact discs, VCDs, DVDs, laserdiscs, audiocassettes, slides and long players records (LPs) are available. Library patrons with a strong interest in Singapore, heritage, current affairs, visual arts documentaries, business, management, history, language and social science should definitely make use of the collection.

Library patrons may choose to browse the open shelves or check the online catalogue to select the title they want. Thereafter, they may seek the help of trained Library Assistants at the Audio Room who will assign them a station for viewing or listening. However, some audiovisual materials such as audiocassettes for language learning, slides for historical topics and LPs for classical music are housed in the Repository Used Collection and may be reserved at the Information Counter at a nominal fee of $1.55 per item.

Challenges and Opportunities

In order to meet the challenges and service standards in providing greater choice of format, the Lee Kong Chian Reference will:

• continuously acknowledge and respond to customer demands in addition to closely monitoring customer preferences, trends in technology and publishing, and

• review the collection development policy regularly to respond to a new and continuously changing information services marketplace.

Conclusion

In today’s digital information age, where a greater choice of format competes with content diverstiy, the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library will continue to balance the needs of its library patrons against content selection and development. To avoid sacrificing the quality and depth of the collection, the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library will be acutely aware of customer needs, be sure that the library has a clear and fiscally realistic focus of purpose and cooperate with other community libraries to share resources. At the same time it will focus on safeguarding the available materials and intellectual contents for future use.

So, visit the Audiovisual Room today for an enriching and fulfilling experience.

Author:
Hameedah Ibrahim
Reference Librarian
Lee Kong Chian Reference Library