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Bukit Panjang Community Library

Bukit Panjang Community Library is located on the fourth floor of Bukit Panjang Plaza, No. 1 Jelebu Road, Singapore 677743. It is the fourth rental library in a shopping mall and the fourteenth community library of the National Library Board. It was officially opened by Teo Ho Pin (Dr), Member of Parliament for Sembawang GRC, on the 4 April 1998.

Layout
The library has a floor area of 1,246 square metres which occupies two units of Bukit Panjang Plaza. It has a Customer Service Counter, Children's Section, Activities Room, Adult/Young People's Section and Reference Collection. To promote an appreciation of arts, a collection of paintings and ceramic works by local artists are displayed. In the Children's Section, the dome ceiling is coloured with images of clouds and a smiling sun. Together with a nature theme, it creates a very conducive reading environment for children.

Services and Facilities
The library serves about 75,000 residents of the Bukit Panjang, Bukit Timah and Teck Whye constituencies. It has a collection of 120,000 books and periodicals and about 160 cd-rom titles. It has multimedia services at the fourteen Public Access Network Stations with printing facilities at thirty cents per page.

The library was a prototype for the colour coding system. This system assigned a unique colour band to each letter of the alphabet or to the digits 0 to 9. It greatly reduces the time of processing and sorting of books by the staff. It is the first library to implement the barcodes on the books' front covers to facilitate faster check-out time for the users.

Programmes
The library conducts regular English storytelling and video screening sessions for young readers. During school holidays, special craft sessions are also conducted. Programmes for adults are usually conducted by organisations namely the Apple Tree, Toastmasters and the International Magician Society.



Author
Jenny Tien



References
National Library Board. (1998). Annual Report (p. 15). Singapore: Author.
(Call no.: RSING 027.05957 SNLBAR)

Chew, J. (1998). @ the Library: Check out NLB's newest community library located in Bukit Panjang Plaza. Retrieved February 17, 2002, from  www.nlb.gov.sg/libbackissues/back.may_jun/features/latest/index.html 

The information in this article is valid as at 2000 and correct as far as we are able to ascertain from our sources. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history on the subject. Please contact the Library for further reading materials on the topic.

Subject
Architecture and Landscape>>Building Types>>Public Buildings>>Libraries
Public libraries--Singapore
Libraries--Singapore
Singapore--History--1990-
Law and government>>Culture and community>>Public libraries
Science and technology>>Library and information science>>Library and information services



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