Release Date : 01 Sep 2012
Our Valued Customers
Dr William Wan
General Secretary of the Singapore Kindness Movement
Ladies and Gentlemen
1. A very good afternoon, and thank you for joining us in celebrating Customer Appreciation Day. This day is dedicated to honour all of you, our library visitors, who are at the heart of what we do.
Co-creation with Our Customers
2. Here at the National Library Board (NLB), we consider our customers as our most important partners in our journey to improve. Many of our improvements in recent years have been suggested by our customers, who care for our libraries. By involving, consulting and co-creating with our customers, NLB hopes we can continue to be a well-loved public service.
3. We listen very carefully to our customers' suggestions, assess them and explore the feasibility of implementing them. Some of our library visitors have given us very useful suggestions. I am happy to say that we will be implementing some feasible ideas which benefit library visitors. One of these ideas that we are carrying out is the use of smaller labels on the spine of books. These labels take up less space on the book covers, making book titles, authors' names and other details more reader-friendly.
4. Library visitor Ms Eva Wong gave us an idea to carry out daytime sessions for our “Fun with Tots” programme for parents and their toddlers. This will cater to stay-home mothers and their young ones. Soon, NLB will be implementing daytime sessions at seven public libraries.
5. Another library visitor Ms Cheong Ming Lee suggested starting the school holiday loan promotion two weeks earlier. As you know, during the school holidays we double the loan quota for our borrowers. Ms Cheong felt that by starting early, we can enable students who have finished their examinations to borrow more books for reading even before the holiday starts. We agree with Ms Cheong and I am happy to say that the next loan promotion will kick-off earlier on 20 October 2012.
6. Today, we will also be giving special recognition to 44 visitors. They include 15 visitors who suggested books and eBooks that we can add to our library's collection. They posted their suggestions in response to our social media drive which we dubbed as “Fill Our Shelves, Suggest a Book”, which was spearheaded by one of our young librarians, Ms Joanna Zhang. We would like to acknowledge the top three contributors with the most number of suggestions, as well as another 12 library visitors who recommended books which have received the highest number of votes from other visitors. This social media initiative attracted over 1,700 suggestions for books and more than 2,500 votes.
7. Not forgetting our 25 Top Borrowers; this group of people include young children as well as senior citizens. Among them, there are five who were also the Top Borrowers last year. For all 25 of you, we will be upgrading your library membership to premium plus for a year on a complimentary basis, to further encourage your love for reading. We applaud your passion for reading and hope to see you again for next year's Customer Appreciation Day.
8. We will also be recognising our four customer role models, who will be receiving these Singa trophies as part of the Singapore Kindness Movement. Our library staff have spotted these four library visitors who stood out with their patience, consideration and kindness.
Appreciation
9. Finally, I would like to thank all of you for your continuous support over the years. Together, we can strive to create an even more welcoming atmosphere at the libraries.
10. We have lined up a week of activities for you. I wish all of you an enjoyable time and hope you have fun at the libraries. Thank you.