S2E5 Bonus: Gene Tan
Summary Keywords
Digital literacy, learning environments, book curation, community engagement, inclusive libraries, assistive technology, reading future, lifelong learning, mental health, social architecture, library innovation, content discovery, collection management, reading habits, knowledge access, public services, educational spaces
00:03 Host, Loh Chin Ee
When you mention the word “librarian”, the stereotype of a quiet, bookish, most likely, female bespectacled person shelving books and “shhh,” asking you to keep quiet might come to mind. But in reality, the modern librarian looks very different. Yes, the librarian likely loves reading, that’s probably one reason they decided to become librarians. But, this book expertise that they have is necessary to curate the book collection so as to help you find books you want to read. But librarians are also experts at many other things. They make manage data, make use of technology to facilitate our access to information and teach digital literacy. Librarians are also event organisers, running small and large-scale events to bring the community together. They design learning environments, advocate equal access to knowledge, often helping to connect less well-resourced individuals to education and public services.
In this bonus episode, I speak with Gene Tan, Chief Librarian and Chief Innovation Officer at the National Library Board, to find out more about the largely invisible but very vital work of librarians in a reading and knowledge economy.
01:25 Gene Tan
My name is Gene Tan. I'm the Chief Librarian and Chief Innovation Officer. So as the Chief Librarian, I take care of all the librarians in the National Library Board, and that means that professional development as well as all the projects and work that they do. And as the Chief Innovation Officer, I drive the direction for where our services and our collections will go.
01:48 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Maybe before we get into the library, I always like to ask people, what books are you reading now?
01:53 Gene Tan
Oh, I just finished War by Bob Woodward. I'm a great fan of his, and I think this is his first book of the Biden administration. He talks about the Ukraine war as well as the Gaza conflict right now.
02:05 Host, Loh Chin Ee
So non-fiction is your preferred?
02:08 Gene Tan
Yes, which is interesting, because I'm actually a literature major, yeah. But after I might have overdosed when I was doing the major, so I am reading almost exclusively non fiction now.
02:21 Host, Loh Chin Ee
When did you join the National Library and how did you come to join the National Library?
02:26 Gene Tan
I was at Reference Library in 1993 I joined because I was being interviewed for the civil service, and there were several options. So it's between that and promoting health or doing communications in the Ministry of Defence. It was a no brainer. I'm a literature major, and I thought I would spend the rest of my life reading books. I was wrong, there was so much to do when I joined the library.
02:49 Host, Loh Chin Ee
There's this idea that the librarian sits at the desk and reads the book, right?
02:53 Gene Tan
Yeah...
02:53 Host, Loh Chin Ee
But actually you do that so...you do other things, so that other people can sit down and read the books.
02:58 Gene Tan
I think the librarian is a little bit like a choreographer. As the choreographer you actually design the whole service. In fact, it's really weird when I go elsewhere and people realise I'm the Chief Librarian and the Chief Innovation Officer. That doesn't usually happen, because the Chief Innovation Officer is usually someone from the tech sector, and then they would school the librarian on how to do tech products.
So I had to learn that part of the business so that I'm able to bridge the two. So I'm encouraging all librarians to be maybe multimodal that way too. So with those skills, they're able to construct all these services. And librarians are also, I would say, social architects, so they're not just at the desk waiting for someone to come up with a question. We design all these services for you to use, and we're also there to facilitate. So when you are at the program, or when you are at one of our communities, the librarians is there, almost like a moderator host, to pull different people together.
03:56 Host, Loh Chin Ee
What about the collection? Because I think one of the central things about the library is that, yes, you have all these services, but the collection is quite amazing as well.
04:05 Gene Tan
It’s broad-based selection, because we have a lot of books. We've got millions of titles and all that. So we had to work with the booksellers and publishers to almost, like, figure out what sort of books to bring in. Yeah, so that still happens. So that's the collection. We are also working on something called content. So content is broader than collection. In the past, libraries will be "oh let’s built as big a collection as possible.” So now it's actually about connection. How do I connect to all the great content that's out there and to be able to link you to that? For instance, we work with SPH to provide linkages to the newspapers. We don't own them, it's not our collection, but it's something that we're able to connect people to. So I think librarians are also working on, wow that's a bad word, algorithm. So a group of librarians are working with me now, on a special algorithm to be able to present content to you they can explore. So it could be from books, it could be from our programs. It could be something for National Archives, which, by the way, is also under the National Library Board, and you can explore that. And just give you a little tidbit, we're working on something that looks like it's a positive and it's a benign social feed. So the infinite feed will provide you things that will actually broaden your perspective and help you to explore so many more topics that you may not have imagined.
05:21 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Yeah, that's really cool. I don't think algorithm is a bad word, if you know how to use it. You've reminded me that the NLB app is something I want to ask about as well. How did the National Library decide that they had to design an app? What are the various iterations in terms of improvement of the app? Because I remember downloading it in 2015. I don't know if that was the start, or it was even earlier. I just got to it at 2015 and of course, there was the pandemic. And then it was good, a lot of people had the app. They started reading the e-books and all that. But how did you all even think that you needed an app?
05:55 Gene Tan
So I had to confess, NLB cannot claim credit to e-books and e-magazines and all that. But I remember in 2009, and I remember very clearly, because that was a year we had a very interesting skit. We demonstrated how a librarian can fit into your pocket, but the actual service was a mobile service. So that was in 2009 we thought about that. At that time. We said, ubiquitous libraries, it can't just be the internet. There must be a faster way for people to check out materials and then to find other materials, and that's how the app was created.
06:26 Host, Loh Chin Ee
It’s kind of interesting. I see the focus seems to be the same. It's always like, how can we get the books to the patrons...
06:33 Gene Tan
Into hands of the patrons, right?
06:34 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Yeah...
06:35 Gene Tan
...as quickly as possible, as painlessly as possible, that's been the pattern. But I think right now is...there's a lot of focus on experiences as well. Yeah, when you come to the library, so now that you’ve taken away the pain, it’s the other P, pleasure, you know, so the pleasure of going to a library and having experience that you may not have from the other P, your phone, and that's why it talks about the idea of the determination and intention to always create place based services.
07:04 Host, Loh Chin Ee
One of the things I mentioned here is...I’m a bit sad about the loss of a front. There's the visible librarians that we mentioned just now. And I'm thinking about it from the perspective of because when I do my work on reading, I'm always concerned with sort of the low income kids who may not have that much exposure, and I think the front desk librarian is no loss for say, my kids, who are very familiar with going to the library, but I wonder if it's a bit of a...maybe not so much loss, but like maybe some people might benefit from seeing the librarian a little bit more?
07:36 Gene Tan
It’s just that librarians no longer, should I say, chained to the desk. This sounds almost medieval, because books used to be chained to the desk.
07:44 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Yes, yes.
07:45 Gene Tan
It's so expensive. With innovation, I think a lot is self service. So, in the past, librarians were there to assist with actually, a lot of transactions as well. So, we liberated them from that. But librarians do operate a lot, in a lot of circles to help people reading. For instance, for low-income kids, we work with a lot of volunteers a program called kidsREAD. We're even experimenting on something called kidsREAD@Home. That means you actually go to the homes, because we realise that low-income kids sometimes are not even going to the libraries, yeah, because the parents fear that there too many distractions on the way to a library, like in a mall, or they are worried about them making that journey, and they don't have time because they work so much. So, we are creating all these kidsREAD that is closer to home or closer to some centers that's closer to where they live. So the librarians actually do a lot of these services, and they're extremely, extremely popular.
08:36 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Do you have a lot of volunteers with the library?
08:39 Gene Tan
Yes, yes, I happen to run volunteers as well as part of my portfolio. We have about five, six thousand a year? It’s very significant, and they are very passionate people. They can help with things like shelf reading, which is extremely therapeutic, it's one of the most popular ones. They assist us with our programming. They also do things like transcribing, like for instance, listen to oral history, and then they help us to transcribe. They can help us to collect memories. So we have groups of young people who collect memories of the older generation. I had a pioneer librarian called Mrs. Yang, I respect her a lot. She started all of these book clubs, and she even did one for taxi drivers and hairdressers. So she would get many haircuts, just to persuade them.
09:24 Host, Loh Chin Ee
So, her hair will be short.
09:25 Gene Tan
Yeah, her hair is always short, but it keeps getting shorter because she keeps going back to get a haircut so she can talk to the hairdresser..."you know, you guys should form a book club,” and they did.
09:34 Host, Loh Chin Ee
What are some of the things that the library has been doing to focus on getting the library to be more inclusive?
09:39 Gene Tan
I do believe that the libraries have always thought about that. And all libraries, even before Punggol, were done in a way that was accessible. But it really was a labour of love. I think it was a group of librarians who really believed in it, so Punggol was the fruit of that. It's amazing, right?
09:57 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Yeah, how...
09:58 Gene Tan
So, this wasn't like, “wow, let's have a work plan and a master plan, and along came accessibility.” It came from good librarians who really wanted to do it, and they started to get themselves involved in the community. They work with the community to form a group to advise on this, and then they make inroads with all the partners. After that, of course, the organisation came in and supported them.
10:20 Host, Loh Chin Ee
I mean, it sounds like it's the fruit of this strong culture of innovation and independence that you've given to the team.
10:28 Gene Tan
Yeah, and love. There's a lot love. So it's the love for the community and...and the librarians, do you think librarians are very passive because they're very passionate?
10:35 Host, Loh Chin Ee
No, they're very passionate.
10:36 Gene Tan
They must be burning inside all the passion, because it doesn't show. But the passion comes through, and they're passionate about different things. I'm passionate about bridging technology, content, and just the pleasure of a place. Then there are librarians who are passionate about accessibility, so that comes through. And with the passion, I don't have a P word, it's an O word, we provide the opportunity for that to flourish.
10:59 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Given the focus of this episode on libraries and innovations, is there anything else you would like to share?
11:04 Gene Tan
Yeah, I think libraries and librarians really need to think about the whole architecture or content. It's not just about a single transaction or a single task that you perform, or a single interaction. You think of the whole architecture or relationships or the community of experiences. It's a very complex job, but look at what we're up against these days, social media, streaming media, recommendation media, there's a lot to work with.
11:33 Host, Loh Chin Ee
What's the difference between reading a book and say, reading the papers or reading on social media? Your thoughts?
11:39 Gene Tan
I am quite agnostic to be honest about reading in any form, but I do think that long form reading is really good for your mental health. I believe in that a lot, and it helps with your concentration. I do that sometimes, and if I've been working very hard on the project and reading a lot of pieces here and there, it takes me a while to read a book well again. So it trains your mind, it focuses you, so you don't end up going off ramp to social media. Yeah, the off ramp is such a dangerous thing, you know, when you're on social media and then you've been doing off ramps to explore so many other nuggets that sort of thrown at you, yeah, and a lot of nuggets. Sometimes I feel it's not very healthy, especially for the mind. It creates desire for things that you don't have. It creates desire for images that you do not live up to. Oh, that's a very personal view, yeah, but I strongly believe in that, reading and mental health.
12:33 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Thanks. And one more, one more. What do you think is the future of reading?
12:37 Gene Tan
I think the future of reading is actually the path of reading. I'm sorry, I'm going retro. Supposed to be the Chief Innovation Officer, but I have a super retro view to that. I have huge confidence that reading is going to come back. It's the Renaissance.
12:53 Host, Loh Chin Ee
With the vast amount of information available, ever higher levels of literacy will be required to keep pace with the changes in the world, reading frequently and reading widely is key for lifelong learning. I have no doubt that librarians, whether at the Singapore National Library Board or in our schools and universities or other spaces, will continue to play a crucial role. Thank you for listening to the How We Read podcast bonus episode. Swipe on the cover art to see show notes with links and references. We're available on all major podcast apps. Please subscribe to be notified of new episodes. For more information, please visit lohchinee.com.