Bishan Community Library (BICL) officially opens on 2 Sept 2006

Down with a cold and a very bad sore throat (yes, the kind that gives you the sexy voice). Must be the accumulated stress from the IFLA conference. Hence, I won't be able to attend Bishan Community Library's opening tomorrow.


The opening of BICL makes this the 20th Community Library (or the 23rd public library, if you include the 3 Regional Libraries). I found this library to be one of the better designed ones, interior-wise.

Wonder if my colleague, manager of BICL, would be able to sleep well tonight. I remember worrying about Bukit Merah CL's opening (when I was still managing it). As a branch manager, you inevitably worry about the opening day crowd -- would the crowd be overwhelming? Or would few people turn up?

For the past 10 years, there's always been a good-sized crowd for library opening days. But inspite of that knowledge, you'll always have some doubts. Perhaps "doubt" is the wrong word to use. More accurate to say that one doesn't take things for granted.

Incidentally, with the recent endorsement* by PM Lee for government agencies to experiment with mediums like blogs, I wonder if NLB would like to start a blog for the next library coming up -- to give some insights on the work involved in building and preparing a library for opening and beyond. The blog would certainly be a great source of archival material for that particular library itself, if nothing else.

* Full-text of PM Lee's speech available here (from ST interactive); scroll to the section "The Digital Age - reaping the benefits, managing risks"


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