Library Management

Emerald Article: Engaging active citizenry among Singaporeans, young and

old, at the Singapore public libraries
Wai Yeen Valerie Siew

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To cite this document: Wai Yeen Valerie Siew, (2007),"Engaging active citizenry among Singaporeans, young and old, at the
Singapore public libraries", Library Management, Vol. 28 Iss: 1 pp. 17 - 26
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Engaging active
Engaging active citizenry among citizenry among
Singaporeans, young and old, at Singaporeans
the Singapore public libraries
17
Wai Yeen Valerie Siew
National Library Board, Singapore Received 4 July 2006
Accepted 28 September
2006
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the strategies NLB has undertaken to encourage
people to become active citizens at the public libraries.
Design/methodology/approach The paper covers a brief history of the volunteer movement in
NLB, followed by a short discourse on the benefits of having volunteers. This is followed by a
discussion on the various strategies taken by NLB for its volunteer management programme. The
paper concludes with a discussion on the implications for public libraries on the need to engage and
manage volunteers.
Findings The findings in the paper were: as public institutions, public libraries need to engage
members of the public beyond just being library members. At the National Library Board Singapore
(NLB), library volunteers are seen as strategic community partners who actively play a part in
value-adding and improving library services to the public. From the volunteer standpoint, being part
of the public library network is one way of giving back to the community. From the organizational
point of view, having volunteers at the public libraries give NLB additional resources through which it
can innovate and channel more information and knowledge seeking services.
Practical implications The paper shows that active citizenry is encouraged as part of NLBs
Library 2010 blueprint to forge public libraries into social learning spaces. To do this, volunteers are
engaged at different levels both in terms of the time commitment they can give and the tasks they
are willing to undertake. This allows for a flexible volunteering scheme for people from all walks of life
to contribute back to society, either on a long or short-term basis, as a regular volunteer or on a project
basis. Libraries hoping to engage volunteers may find the strategies outlined in the paper as useful
considerations to build their own volunteer management programme.
Originality/value This paper offers practical strategic considerations to libraries and information
resource centers intend on engaging volunteers as part of the resources to fulfill library services to the
public.
Keywords Volunteers, Public libraries, Singapore
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
In recent years, Singapore has seen a steady rise in the number of people volunteering
in areas as diverse as the arts, protection of the environment and in humanistic
services. This is significant because it represents a shift of reliance from the public
sector to the people sector.
A local survey, National Volunteerism Survey 2004, showed that currently only
15 percent of the Singapore population is engaged in volunteer work; with a further Library Management
Vol. 28 No. 1/2, 2007
15 percent indicating that they are likely to volunteer. While this is far below standards pp. 17-26
set by other countries such as the USA or the UK, it is a positive start to cultivate active q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0143-5124
citizenry, where people take pride and joy in carrying out meaningful and productive DOI 10.1108/01435120710723518
LM volunteer work. This same survey showed that volunteering made people more
28,1/2 attached to Singapore and they were also more aware of their duties and
responsibilities as citizens. Besides these, volunteerism has also nurtured
development in broad-based soft skills such as leadership, communication, creative
thinking and people management (National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre, 2004).
Susan Ellis, one of the worlds most renown thought leader and practitioner in
18 volunteerism, shared that volunteerism is a more focused term that speaks to
anything relevant to volunteers and volunteering. It is really volunteering regardless
of setting. This broad definition includes the volunteer activities, the management and
the non-profit setting. It also covers volunteering at government agencies and
corporate employee volunteering (Ellis, 2003).
Volunteerism is for everyone, and represents a good way to bring together the
private, public and people sectors for a common cause. The government, companies
and individuals are united to serve a common good for the community at large.
Recognizing the importance of volunteers in affecting the community, the National
Library Board Singapore (NLB) deliberately set out to include this element in its
blueprint, Library 2010 (L2010). In this roadmap designed to take Singapores libraries
to the next wave of library excellence, the L2010 plan calls for the Singapore public
libraries to be transformed into vibrant social learning spaces.
To enable this, the NLB has pledged that it would organize itself around customer
communities, serving the needs of diverse customer groups. This includes stepping up
more customer-focused initiatives such as engaging active citizenry through our
Friends of the Library (FOL) programmes, encouraging public libraries to be seen as
safe havens and learning centres for lower educated citizens and collaborating with
community partners to organise programmes for people to come together to help one
another learn (Singapore National Library Board, 2005).
This paper will focus on the NLBs engagement of volunteers as an initiative to
achieve its L2010 outcomes. In order to better appreciate its importance, this essay
takes a short historical journey that traces the recruitment of the very first group of
library volunteers in 2002, that subsequently led to the growth of the library
volunteers programme. Next this paper will discuss the benefits of having volunteers
engaging in library services. It will then cover NLBs four strategies for encouraging
more people to volunteer at the libraries. Each strategy will be covered in a separate
section of the essay. The paper will conclude by highlighting some implications for
public libraries on the need to engage and manage volunteers.

Historical overview
Recruiting volunteers for the libraries was a project of NLBs The Advisory Friends Of
the Library for the Older Persons. This advisory panel comprises of members from
various local senior citizens groups was first formed in 1999 to advise the NLB on the
information needs and interests of senior citizens. The formation of this advisory panel
coincided with the International Year of Older Persons.
With the launch of NLBs first do-it-yourself (DIY) library in 2002, library customers
were expected to help themselves to the various services at the library ranging from
the borrowing of their library materials through self-check machines, to remote
registration for library memberships and paying of overdue fines through cashless
means. This prototype library commenced operations with only one librarian, Engaging active
supported by casual part-time, contract staff. citizenry among
To supplement the skeletal staffing situation at this library, some 28 volunteers
were selected to pilot a volunteer programme for senior citizens. The advisory panel Singaporeans
felt that it was important to engage these retirees and senior citizens to be part of the
library, as it would give them something meaningful to do (Sengkang, 2002).
The pilot project at this library proved to be a success. Volunteers showed that they 19
were able to integrate well with the activities of the library. They contributed to the
library by conducting storytelling and craft activities for children as well as library
user education and orientation programmes.
Thus, from an initial pool of just 28 volunteers, through an intense recruitment drive
launched in 2000, 180 senior volunteers, called Friends of the Library (FOL), were
recruited, trained and mobilized, for the rest of the 22 public libraries in Singapore.
Today the number of volunteers has risen to some 180 senior citizen volunteers, 63
teenage volunteers and some 545 kidsRead volunteers. The teenage volunteers are
engaged mainly in running a teens library. kidsRead volunteers are a specially trained
group of volunteers conducting reading literacy programmes for needy children from
lower-income families.
Although initial reasons for recruiting volunteers focused more on occupying the
time of the elderly and retirees, the reasons for engaging volunteers have now also
taken a shift.

Benefits in having volunteers

Volunteering brings benefits to both society at large and the individual volunteer. It makes
important contributions, economically as well as socially. It contributes to more cohesive
society building trust and reciprocity among citizens (UN Volunteers) (UN Volunteers, 2006).

There is now a greater awareness of what volunteers can do for the community and a
keenness to engage volunteers, which recognizes that many volunteer roles contribute
substantially to improve the quality of life in a community. Furthermore, from an
economic point of view, it was encouraging to learn that the value of volunteering
across Singapore in 2002 alone was S$1.5 billion (Tan, 2003).
At the libraries, the integration between librarians and its public customers as
volunteers encourages greater understanding between both groups of people, and lead
to a better appreciation of each others concerns towards improving library services.
Thus, we see three main benefits in having volunteers. These have to do with
extending our reach to the community, stretching our organizational resources and
also having ready access to community expertise.

Greater community outreach

Volunteer involvement offers the NLB public libraries an additional channel to
strengthen ties with the community at large, as volunteers usually have greater
familiarity with local resources and networks. Thus, volunteers are able to complement
and strengthen the current organizational outreach efforts of the NLB to the
community.
This benefit is most evident in the kidsRead programme. kidsREAD is a
collaborative effort of the NLB, the Peoples Association, and five self-help groups,
LM namely, Association of Muslim Professionals, Chinese Development Assistance
28,1/2 Council, Eurasian Association, Singapore, Singapore Indian Development Association,
and Yayasan MENDAKI. A total of 545 kidsRead volunteers were recruited through
the self-help groups to help run this nationwide reading initiative aimed at promoting
the love of reading among the young from the lower income families. To date, some
1,600 children have benefited from the efforts of these kidsRead volunteers (Singapore
20 National Library Board, 2006).

Extending organizational resources

This reason relates to economics of running a library network as extensive as NLB in
Singapore. By having volunteers, we are able to stretch the available human resources
to offer a more varied library service to the public. Staffers were channeled towards
expanding and enhancing library services beyond the library premises. Volunteers, on
the other hand, depending on their skills, competencies and expertise, were valuable in
either providing the required support to librarians or handling the more routine duties
within the library environment.
In this way, volunteers increase and enhance the organizational capability to do
more with present available resources. Thus while the librarians and para-professional
staffers focus on providing the professional library services, the volunteers could focus
on supporting non-professional tasks.
For example, volunteers act as etiquette guardians in the public libraries. These
volunteers circulate among library users and educate the customers on the proper
ways to use the public libraries. An informal poll conducted by a local newspaper
showed that noise in the library was the most frequent complaint among library users.
Instead of getting staff to patrol the libraries to curb rude and/or noisy behaviour of
library customers, the library relies instead on its volunteers who patrol the library
areas, reminding library customers about basic library courtesy and consideration for
other users of the libraries (Tom, 2006).
In a recent campaign launch to encourage better library manners, the Chief
Executive of NLB, Dr N. Varaprasad, encouraged library users to take ownership of the
library and give back to society with their talent, time and goodwill by volunteering as
Friends of the Library. It was through volunteering that people can help the libraries
strengthen our bond with the community and improve the publics awareness of NLB
and the librarys mission, services and facilities (Varaprasad, 2006).

Sources of expertise
The value of having volunteers goes beyond financial gains. We recognize that to grow
our library services, it will be important for us to tap into expertise of people with
specialized skills and knowledge to better serve our public. These skills and know-how
would be those that our present staff do not possessed but are needed to achieve our
objectives. By tapping into the skills and talents of volunteers to reach out to the
community, the scope and variety of library services, programmes and events can be
expanded beyond its present boundaries.
Thus, many volunteer organizations and groups are actively sought after to
contribute their talents, knowledge and skills through the public libraries
programmes. These include volunteer groups such as the Nature Society, the
Association of Mental Health, the Singapore Council of Womens Organisation and the Engaging active
Autistic Association of Singapore. citizenry among
Beyond the value recognized by NLB, it is also important that the volunteers should
also be encouraged to achieve certain outcomes for themselves. Singaporeans

Outcomes valued by volunteers

Through their contributions, we hope that our volunteers would be able to achieve the 21
following outcomes:
.
Volunteers see volunteerism as a means to expand their social network.
.
They grow in their compassion and concern about the community in need.
.
Volunteers feel satisfied and enriched in being able to help others.
. The time spent by volunteers may also be seen as a useful investment towards
networking and enhancing the value of their resume, particularly for younger
volunteers.
.
Through their volunteer work, these people will gain new perspective of the
public libraries and the services we offer to the community.
.
Volunteers, especially the senior volunteers, will feel useful and less lonely.
In the long run, the volunteers will come to a better appreciation of the public libraries
and our services, so they in turn would be our libraries ambassadors to their peers and
community groups.

Strategic enablers to engage active citizens

In 2003, the Corporation for National and Community Service and the Urban Institute
conducted a joint national study on the capacity of US charities to manage their
volunteers (Corporation for National and Community Service, 2003).
This study identified three important management practices that are required to
ensure a high retention rate of volunteers. These are:
.
Matching the volunteers interest to suitable organizational tasks.
.
Providing volunteers with training and development opportunities.
. Acknowledging volunteers for their contributions through a robust rewards and
recognition programme.
Recognizing this, the NLB has undertaken four-prong approach to enhance its own
current volunteer management programme.
These include:
.
Having a volunteer management system.
.
Recruitment strategy.
.
Training and development.
. Rewards and recognition programme.
Volunteer management system
The importance of the factors highlighted by the US study contributed largely to the
NLB investing in a volunteer management system that enables its libraries to better
manage the volunteers.
LM The volunteer management system was intended both for use by the volunteers as
28,1/2 well as the libraries. In early 2006, NLB acquired this volunteer management system.
The functions of the volunteer management system allowed the libraries to advertise
their volunteering opportunities. Interested volunteers keen to do the tasks on hand can
quickly apply for the positions of their choice. The system keeps track of the service
hours and the volunteering involvement of the volunteers online. This serves equally
22 well for record keeping purposes and to recognize the various efforts of the volunteers.
Being a dynamic system, it also enables the volunteers to give their feedback or
communicate with the libraries.

Recruitment strategy
In the beginning, recruitment for volunteers was done mainly through poster
advertisements within the public libraries. This was not an efficient way to recruit for
volunteers, as would-volunteers had very little idea of what areas of library services
needed their help. Much of the volunteering opportunities also centred on routine
duties such as shelf-reading, customer service and storytelling. Volunteers were also
expected to commit up to one hour a week for at least a six months period.
This approach was also not flexible enough to accommodate working adults who
wanted shorter-term commitments, preferably on turnkey projects. Feedback from the
public also showed that they desired more challenging volunteering tasks aside from
doing housekeeping library duties, which they considered mundane and routine. This
meant that we had to rethink how we matched our volunteers to the available tasks
such that it also fitted into their lifestyle expectations of volunteerism.
Task matching, thus, became an integral part to the success of our volunteer
programme. With the advent of the VMS, a more flexible approach to advertising
volunteer opportunities is taken. A combination of short and long-term volunteering
opportunities is flagged via the VMS. Tasks are spelt out with the degree of difficulty
mentioned and the level of commitment expected. Every task defined is also
accompanied by a fix set of deliverables. Interested parties can then quickly register
their interests through the system and get a response from the libraries within five
working days.
Aside from flagging opportunities through the VMS, we have also undertaken to
leverage on different groups to bring in our much-needed volunteers. From previous
recruitment exercises, it is recognized that doing one-to-one recruitment exercises,
while having a high success rate, is very time consuming and resource intensive. Thus
strategically, it makes more sense for us to spend the time and effort recruiting through
either known community groups or community partners. Four main groups remain our
priority partners through which we drive our volunteer recruitment.
These are:
(1) Non-profit organizations and volunteer welfare organizations.
(2) National bodies.
(3) Government bodies.
(4) Schools.
Non-profit organizations and volunteer welfare organizations. Through the non-profit
sector, we can leverage off their established connections to reach out to the
communities they serve, particularly the unserved or people who are less well served Engaging active
such as people with disabilities, the unemployed, retirees and lower educated workers. citizenry among
Libraries can then work with these unserved people, through the non-profit
organizations, to expose them to the use of information and knowledge that would Singaporeans
benefit them and allow them to learn new skills.
One such example is the recruitment exercise with a local non-profit community
group, called the Young-at-Heart, which yielded 30 elderly volunteers. These senior 23
citizens, though semi-literate, were enticed to volunteer at the libraries after a visit to
the National Library of Singapore that was specifically organized for them.
National bodies. National bodies such as the National Youth Council are good
bridging points for bringing in young people to the libraries. Such young adult
volunteers would bring with them their own unique perspective on how they may want
to pay back their time and value to society through the libraries.
Government bodies. Partnerships with government ministries and bodies such as
the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports can assist the libraries to
connect to target groups with who they are already in contact. One such group is the
people with disabilities group.
Schools. Schools are seen as our major recruitment partner for young volunteers.
These school channels are facilitated by the Education Ministrys
Community-involvement-projects (CIP) programme, which encourages the young
people in Singapore to start volunteering in various community efforts while they are
still schooling.
We want to engage the young so that they can see for themselves and realize their
roles as part of NLBs stakeholders.
It is important to the success and continuity of libraries that we influence the young
through volunteerism to realize the value of public libraries in bringing about lifelong
learning and knowledge acquisition. The young need to see that having this
public-people partnership between the NLB and themselves would benefit them as
individuals. By having young, school going volunteers, we hope to encourage them to
adopt our libraries as social learning spaces and knowledge playgrounds where
students are given public space to express their creativity through reading and
learning activities.

Training and development programme

From NLBs own experience with volunteers, we observed that most of our volunteers
choose to work with our libraries because it is different from what they are used to
doing. For instance, a quick glance at the profiles of our volunteers shows that most
volunteers are retirees who were formerly engaged in white-collared jobs such as
teaching or office administration. Among the volunteers are also retired doctors and a
former bank vice-president.
With people from different walks of life coming in as volunteers, it is necessary for
the public libraries to equip these volunteers with the necessary library know-how so
that they can better serve the public. Training plans have been mapped out on two
levels to be carried out with effect from mid-2006 onwards.
First, there will be a general training programme through which all new recruits
would be trained. This training is meant to orientate the newcomers to the corporate
culture of NLB, its service standards and the expectations we have for our volunteers.
LM This is particularly important for long-term commitment of volunteers to their
28,1/2 respective tasks and projects.
Second, specific training programmes will be developed to improve the service quality
of volunteers. For instance, volunteers for storytelling programmes often end up story
reading straight out from the books. Through coaching, on-the-job guidance and
structured courses, we hope to bring these storytellers to a higher standard of storytelling.
24
Rewards and recognition programme
Rewards and recognition of the volunteers contributions needs to be accorded in
tandem with the number of tasks done, the level of task difficulty and the number of
volunteer hours contributed. In the past, without the benefit of a system to help capture
the details, the public libraries had to keep track of the volunteers contributions
manually. This process was not sufficiently efficient for identifying which volunteers
are giving higher value-added services to the libraries. When it came to rewarding and
recognizing their efforts, all volunteers were given the same award. This award
recognizes the fact that they were loyal supporters of the NLB and is not an indicative
value of their contributions.
Moving ahead, NLB has decided to adopt a new way of rewarding and recognizing
our volunteers. This new methodology will be piloted for the service contributions of
our volunteers at the end of this fiscal year. With the VMS being a key tool for
volunteer management, it will now be possible to compute the volunteers
contributions into four award categories.
A possible composite score will be derive from the level of task difficulty, the
number of times one volunteers for this level of task and the volunteer hours given by
the volunteers. This equation would take into account volunteers who choose to take a
combination of tasks with different difficulty levels, especially those who have had
many years of experience with the libraries. These scores will fall into the four award
categories, namely bronze, silver, gold and platinum (see Table I).
Having this system will be a fairer one, which will allow the libraries to recognize
and make distinct the individuals who have contributed beyond the basic levels of
service.

Implications from the libraries viewpoint

Besides these strategic enablers to engage active citizens at the libraries, it is equally
important that the public libraries need to address the implications of having these
volunteers.

Award Description

Bronze Basic recognition given to volunteer

Silver Second level recognition given to volunteer providing more than basic service
Gold Third level recognition given to experienced volunteers who offer value-added
services
Table I. Platinum Highest level of recognition given to volunteer who gives a value of service
Award categories comparable to paid employees
Befriending and managing volunteers Engaging active
Two of the most cited reasons for why volunteers leave an organization are because
they perceived themselves to be either unfairly treated or ineffectively managed
citizenry among
(Halifax Regional CAP Association, 2004). To overcome this, more staffers need Singaporeans
training in managing volunteers and their expectations.
Volunteers also need to be encouraged to give their best, to listen, explore, learn and
share about their learning. Making them feel that their ideas and contributions are 25
valued can be a motivating factor for volunteers to stay longer with the libraries.
In a speech on volunteerism by the Prime Minister of Singapore, he remarked that:
beyond organization and funding, the greatest challenge in promoting volunteerism is to
inspire Singaporeans to serve and contribute from their hearts. This will involve gradually
moulding the values and attitudes of our people to move away from individualism and to find
satisfaction and meaning in contributing to the community (Lee, 2002).
To assist in befriending newer or young volunteers, senior Friends of the Library
(FOLs) can come in to play a role in mentoring younger volunteers. By pairing up the
two groups of volunteers, we are also encouraging them to interact and cultivate
intergenerational bonding and understanding.

Balancing the returns on volunteer investment

Some tasks may require volunteers to be trained in specific skills. Regardless of
whether this is an on-the-job training, a debrief or a structured training course, there is
a need to ensure that the number of service hours given by the volunteers is at least
equal to if not more than the number of training hours given. Thus the returns on
investment should be in the libraries favour.

Impact to quality and standards of service

When using volunteers, there is every possibility that there will be impact on our
service quality when volunteers provide some of the services to the public. Thus it
becomes necessary for library staff to engage in more quality checks into the products
and services offered through the volunteers. At the same time, it is also important to
offer volunteers regular coaching so that they too can learn and improve on their
standards of service. As a public institution, no library should have to compromise on
our service standards at the expense of utilizing volunteers, or else the reputation and
public perceptions of that library may suffer a decline.

Marketing of volunteering opportunities

Even with an online VMS to advertise volunteering opportunities, it will still be
necessary to market the range of library tasks that volunteers can do through other
channels. One such channel in Singapore is the National Volunteer and Philanthropic
Centres online volunteer portal, which lists down the organizations offering
volunteering opportunities to all (National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre, 2004).

Conclusion
Being part of a community goes beyond basic membership or affiliation to the group.
In todays context, more and more people are persuaded to be active citizens, either by
their own yearnings or by external influence, to give back to the community and
contribute to the quality of community life. Having such active citizens as volunteers at
LM the public libraries can only serve to enhance the value and importance of the public
libraries in the eyes of the people they serve. Embracing the vision of Libraries for life,
28,1/2 Knowledge for success, the NLB has set itself out to serve the social and
self-development needs as well as the economic needs of all our customers. To help us
achieve these objectives, the Singapore public libraries have taken to actively wooing
more volunteers to be our community partners. They will be those who have vested
26 interest in bringing about library excellence in Singapore. It is a new journey for us as
we move to increase this pool of volunteers serving our public library network, and
engaging them at every possible level from the storytellers, to the customer service
officers, to high-level advisory panel members and at every age, both young and old.

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Corresponding author
Wai Yeen Valerie Siew can be contacted at: Valier_Siew@nlb.gov.sg

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