Gene Tan.
after COVID-19. When COVID-19 safe distancing measures were enacted in Singapore, NLB promoted our digital collection as a way for people to continue reading without visiting the libraries. We saw enthusiastic take-up and saw digital loans grow 27 per cent, from 8.6 million in 2019 to 10.9 million in 2020. Digital loans maintained strong momentum well beyond COVID-19, reaching 14.8 million in 2024, representing a further 36 per cent increase since 2020. As of 2024, digital loans constitute approximately four in 10 of all NLB loans, highlighting the significance of digital resources.” And while COVID provided an additional impetus for users to embrace digital access, the library service has been able to take that online engagement and transfer it to physical visits. Library users do not always favour one form or interaction over the other, as Gene points out. These visitors have been dubbed “phygital” – hybrid customers who use both physical and digital services.
“These tech innovations have also made our libraries places to go. Our visitorship has been recovering after the hit during the pandemic and we are increasingly seeing more and more phygital customers. They also stick around more year on year, so we are encouraging this kind of hybrid use through omnichannel engagement. Among NLB’s active users, 24.9 per cent are phygital users who engage with both traditional services like borrowing phys- ical books and digital offerings such as eBooks and online newspapers.” These digital services are core to how NLB works, they are not gimmicks and each innovation is about improving the user experience. Gene is keen to ensure that digital services help to lower the bar- rier to access, especially to those who are not traditionally comfortable with using technology.
“Yes, we [Singaporeans] are very well connected and that helps a lot! But a sizable chunk of the population – just like
Summer 2025
any other well-connected country – either needs help to level up or are still fearful of the harms of technology. So, we aspire in a lot of our tech innovations to make technology – in Arthur C. Clarke’s words – disappear like magic. This is really the best way to lower the barrier to entry for those still sceptical or less familiar to come in and experience the service before we intro- duce any technology that comes with it.” Gene’s team of librarians are the ones who help to make the technology “disap- pear like magic”. He says: “Our librarians are at the heart of the development of
these services – from our ILS to our mobile library app – to ensure our users are able to discover what they need. They are also vital in how we engage with users with promotion and education at every opportunity on using them. Though I would say at the end of the day, a digital service really just needs to speak for itself (and be used for itself) with minimal intervention. Anything more that it needs really means it is doomed for a quick demise!
“So even for our core library services like our mobile app where most users go to dis-
INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 17
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