Monday, August 29, 2005

Did you know you could Ask A (public library) Librarian?

Updated: 29 Aug 05 - Children Services email

A few weeks ago while reading my RSS feeds, I came across GadgetDude's post where he asked for recommendations on XML resources. I suggested he ask a librarian (btw, he wasn't in Singapore but that wasn't a problem).

He took up my suggestion and emailed to the advisory & enquiry service manned by my public librarian colleagues. Judging from this post, I guess he found it useful.

GadgetDude is right about us needing to publicise it more.

My PLS colleagues & I plan to launch a publicity campaign for our advisory & enquiry service within the next 3 months. Not only do we want to raise public awareness of the existence of such a service, but also what questions they can ask, and we want people to be comfortable posing questions to librarians.

"Ok, what's so difficult about asking questions?", some may ask.

There's more to it really (otherwise librarians wouldn't be trained in Reference Interview Skills). There are many published articles on this aspect, so I won't blog a long post here.

Meantime, feel free to try out the public library advisory & enquiry services via these email addresses (or walk-up to the librarian on duty at the regional libraries):
  • AdultServices@nlb.gov.sg
  • YoungPeopleServices@nlb.gov.sg
  • ChildrenServices@nlb.gov.sg (updated 29 Aug05: Sorry for the omission!)

  • FictionAdvisory@nlb.gov.sg
  • ask@nlb.gov.sg

I'll explain more on what the different email addresses handle in future posts. For now if you're in doubt of which email to use, just send to any one. UPDATE, Nov 2006: The NLB has consolidated those email addresses, that have been struck out, to one single email address - ask@nlb.gov.sg (only FictionAdvisory@nlb.gov.sg remains at time of this update)

Emails sent to the addresses above would be answered by librarians from the public libraries. We promise to reply within 3 days.

Btw, if you wish to ask the reference librarians at the National Library, i.e. Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, you can use their online enquiry form.

Feel free to pass the word around.


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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:58 am

    wah.. you forgot childrenservices@nlb.gov.sg

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry about that. I meant to write a separate post for Children Services. But last minute somehow I decided to add the LKCRL service and forgot to update J services. It's updated now. Thanks for pointing it out.

    ReplyDelete

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