Download - Ifla2010 s68 varaprasad
IFLA 2010, The Metropolitan Libraries Section
August 10-15, Gothenburg, Sweden
Unleashing the Power of Quest:
Two Innovative Projects to Reap the
Rewards of Reading
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Two Projects for a Creative Appetite
The Quest for Visual Engagement
Quest for the Perfect “Boy’s Project”
Read and Reap: The Project
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
In an ideal world…
Libraries would be valued as
treasure houses of
knowledge, all parents would
always promote reading and
children would always
choose the library as their
Sunday place of choice.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
In reality…
Reading, despite its
importance, is but one
past time in a buffet
spread of television
programmes, exciting
computer games and all
other forms of
entertainment competing
for that precious free time
in between work or school
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
The Quest for Visual Engagement
Television
Computer
Games/ Online
Social Platforms
PSPs/ iPhones
Sports/ Other
hobbies
Visual
Kinesthetic
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
NLB believes…
In addition to promoting
reading, it has become
imperative to change the
perception of reading,
differentiating it from
schoolwork.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Two Projects, the Same Idea
1.A strong visual
element.
2. Interactive
3.Online presence
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Quest: The Perfect Project for Boys
“One of the biggest reason boys fail at reading is that we turn
reading into work.”
- Michael Sullivan, from Connecting Boys with Books 2
Reading as play, not work
To find an innovative and fun programme that will make
children proactively choose to come to the library
To invoke the feeling of starting on an adventure
Target Group
7-12 years old children, particularly male reluctant readers
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Quest: Trend Following
Revival of the
fantasy genre
starting with the
Harry Potter
phenomena
Evergreen
interest in
trading cards &
board games
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Quest is…
A reading programme that aims to convert
reluctant readers, particularly boys as lifelong
learners
A fantasy adventure story that children can follow
A collectible trading card game
A Reading Programme A Story A Game A Hobby
Quest supports the vision of the National Library Board, Singapore,
which is to be an inspiring beacon of lifelong learning where
knowledge is inspired, imagination sparked and possibility created
in the formation of creative individuals.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Quest as a Reading Programme
Launched in June 2009
60 illustrated cards done in Japanese manga style
Each card contains part of a fantasy story and can be
played like any other trading card game
Children collect and redeem cards by submitting their
loan receipts from book borrowing
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
The Quest format is
instantly recognisable to
children who take it upon
themselves to promote it
to their friends to increase
their opportunities for
card trading.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Quest in support of creativity
Creative Writing Competition
Children were invited to submit alternate endings to the story
Warmly received competition was an affirmation that children
were reading the story and not simply collecting cards.
“Hunt for the Rain Dragon” Drawing Competition
Children, youths and adults were invited to create a rain
dragon for the second installment of Quest.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Rain Dragon Design Entries
Age
39
Age
41
Age
11
Age
17
Age
21
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Quest in the Digital Realm
Diminishing Distances
The space between the physical and virtual world is being
eroded
Children continue interactions with friends from school on
social media platforms at home
The Digital face of Quest
Children can read the full story online, download colouring
pages, bookmarks and receive book recommendations
online
http://quest.pl.sg
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Quest in the Digital Realm
The website has an average of 150 hits per day and
surpassed the 30 000 visits mark in less than a year
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Quest in Numbers
Component Target Achieved (as at 31st
Mar 2010)
Quest Cards redeemed 480,000 1.33 million (+277%)
Loans generated 800,000 2.05 million (+256%)
Participants 40,000 70,000 (+175%)
% loans increased
from 9 to 12 years old
for period of project.
30%
% of boys participating
in programme
75%
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Quest in Words
“My little boy was so keen on this that he keeps on borrowing and reading,
keeping all the borrowing receipts with hope, myself ending up as his
secretary, filing receipts.
I hope the cards can arrive ASAP and act as a driving force to encourage
little to children continue with their reading habits. Quest cards are worth
nothing to an adult but it acts as a form of invincible positive force to build
in children good reading habits.
Please do take care of this [project] and help to build our future
generations with more knowledge, quality, refinement as well as [turn them
into] graceful citizens for the next decades.”
- Chan Chunjin, parent
“Hi, I would like to really appreciate your efforts in encouraging people to
read more and more of books in this Computer age. In your latest step to
give away the quest cards, you would be glad to hear that my 6 year old
son is bringing 16-32 books [home] and reading them day and night to
return and collect more and more quest cards. So, thanks for all that
effort.”
- Neeta, parent
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
NLB BlackBox
Competition - Winner
Notable
Achievements
CAPAM International
Innovation Awards –
Semi Finalist (Finalist
to be announced in
July 2010)
NLB Outstanding
Innovation Team Award
2009 - Winner
Local and
Overseas Media
Mentions
What have you read today that
would inspire someone else?
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore21
What Exactly is Read and Reap?
Read & Reap is about reaping the harvests of reading
Encouraging seeds of ideas to grow from reading a literary extract
from a book
Catalyst for a whole new experience of reading AND SHARING.
The Components of Read & Reap
A literary extract – a sampling of some of the moments in a book
A catchy title like “You Lost Your Hair!”
A thought provoking question to kick-start the thinking process
Some recommended reads (I.e. if you like the extract – please,
please pick up some of these recommended titles.)
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore22
Literary Extract
Recommended Reads
An Eye-Catching Title
“You Lost Your Hair!”
Thought-Provoking Question:Do you have a deep dark secret
that you need to hide because if
people knew, they would see you
differently?
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore23
Why Read & Reap?
Fast with strong visual impact
In a fast paced world, people expect information to be easily
attainable and efficiently delivered
Think of a movie advertisement or maybe a movie trailer with a
caption that catches your attention. You move closer to take a
look at the poster and what you read inspires you to buy a
ticket to watch the movie. The Read and Reap project works on
a similar premise. A short extract is taken from a book and
highlighted with a caption. It uses a visual hook to draw its
reader in.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Reclaiming Reading
Bringing back the intrinsic satisfaction gained from
reading which defines reading as an enjoyable act
A common complaint of our children was that the book
was too thick, they have no time to read (too much
homework and free time is rather spent on television or
the computer)
Read and Reap makes reading digestible.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore25
Why Read & Reap?
To assist in developing a curious and questioning mind
Opportunities for Conversation – we wanted our
children to share and talk about what they have read (not
just movies they have watched)
Thought-provoking questions related to their own
personal life-experiences can help them to connect with
the story on a more personal level.
Hope that the habit of reflecting and thinking will help
develop the critical thinking skills of our children.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore26
Read and Reap from the Beginning
Historically Speaking…
Pilot phase:
August 2007 involving 15 elementary and secondary schools
Team worked closely with teacher coordinators
Schools received 2 sets of 3 extracts with accompanying “Spill It!” poster
Facilitation toolkit of recommended activities and discussion questions was also provided to aid teachers
Posters were placed at high traffic areas in the school compound and were changed on a fortnightly basis to give the students something new and refreshing
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore27
Raising the Project to life
Success with some minor issues like design and font size
Feedback from the Head of English in a primary school
“This is to share with you how excited my pupils are in responseto the poster (Read and Reap - Are you suffering fromFreckles?). The pupils were fascinated by the extract from theposter and decided to pursue more about freckles. Theydecided to read the book, Freckles Juice, so that they canrespond accordingly to the thought provoking question.”
A breath of fresh air for the students, away
from the usual classroom lessons.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Jurong
Secondary
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Assumption
English School
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Libraries
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Responses from students on posters
I regretted not visiting my grandmother frequently when she was still alive –Natalie
They always control our freedom.They should be more positive so that they can blend in with our lifestyle.
They show care about us but sometimes they just want to control our freedom.
I want to change into a hardworking me!
I wish that I will be a magician so that people who bully me will vanish and may be I’ll turn them into fat ugly pig!
Adults always like other children and their own child is stupid.
Adults think they know it all, they do not let us explain when we make a mistake and they do not give us freedom.
I would like to change my brain and make myself the cleverest person on earth
I want my family to change and become a happy family
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
@Unity Secondary
The students from Sec 3
participated in the related
activities during their
English lesson. The session
was conducted in school
library and 35 students
participated.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
@Unity Secondary
The students from Sec 3
participated in the related
activities during their
English lesson. The session
was conducted in school
library and 35 students
participated.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore34
The Digital Face of Read and Reap
Students wanted to see what other students beyond their class and
school thought
SO WE CREATED A BLOG AT HTTP://READANDREAP.SG
An online repository of all extracts
A platform for students to leave their comments and see what other
people thought about the extract they have read
A distribution network for teachers to spread the work and download
more copies of posters and toolkits if they needed to
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore35
http://readandreap.sg
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore36
http://readandreap.sg
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore37
http://readandreap.sg
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore38
Launch of Read and Reap
Read and Reap was officially launched at the inaugural School Library Symposium organized by NLB and Ministry of Education, Singapore on 30 May 2008
Each school received monthly extracts in A2-size posters, A2-size expression sheets and accompanying toolkits.
Additional posters and toolkits could be downloaded via the blog
Public Libraries also displayed the posters so that comments from the public could also be captured.
“My school has received a set of the posters from NLB and our
reading team is delighted to see the wonderful texts which can
serve our pupils well. We hope that you could provide our
school with another 28 sets of posters so that we could help
promote the initiative through a schoolwide event. I hope to
hear from you soon. Thank you so much!”
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore39
Feedback
FROM TEACHERS
“It encourages pupils to think and express their opinions and is another
way of improving their English. It gives pupils opportunities to write about
their opinions on issues related to them.”
FROM STUDENTS
“Interesting Material. Thought provoking as well. It is very interesting and
made us think out of the box. It makes us think further.”
FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC
“I am supportive of this initiative. It encourages readers to ask questions
about what they read and try to apply what they have learnt in their lives.
And I would inform family, friends and relatives about the initiative.”
“I think Read and reap is the perfect platform for youths to share tips and
good reads, and the read and reap motion has done perfect job in attracting
youths to start reading and reaping from books.” – From Jia Wei (14 years
old)
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore40
The Case for Read and Reap
A simple initiative that is both easy, creative and best of all,
allows itself to be integrated smoothly into the time-
compressed lives of our readers
Why Read and Reap
Easy to Implement - it’s just one extract from a book on a poster
and it is up to the teacher/librarian to conduct discussions
Innovative and Flexible - The same extract can be used for
different age groups and interest groups (e.g. poster and blog).
Encourages the sharing and exchange of Ideas – users sharing
ideas and providing extracts in support of a user-centric community
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore41
One Year On: The Power of Fiction Competition
April 2009, teens aged 13-19 could participate in our Read and Reap
Competition titled “The Power of Fiction”
Individuals or teams had to submit a fully designed poster with all the
components and an extract of their choice. Aims:
Encourage young people to enjoy fiction
To help them realise that fiction is a powerful platform to facilitate thinking
There were 239 participants of which 65 submitted as
individuals.
Topics ranged from wars, women’s sizes, feminist concerns
and even library behaviour.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore42
Winning Entries
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore43
Winning Entries
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore44
Power of Fiction showed that Read and
Reap has youth appeal
“Thank you for organising such a great event, and I really enjoyed
making this poster, as I got to ponder more deeply about the book”
– Cho Soo Min
“I like the creative aspect and thought process which one would go
through when selecting an extract and question. The extract
selection was especially tough yet interesting because you have to
pick a concise part of the book to illustrate the full essence or point
of the story, without compromising on its content and meaning.”
–Vincent Lee
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore45
Read and Reap in Numbers
400 schools, 21 public libraries took part
2229 blog hits from all over the world
Approximately 100 blog entries and 450 posted comments.
More than 100 extracts submitted by the public (some were unsuitable and hence not posted on the blog)
Youngest contributor – 8 years old
Approximately 2300 subscribers on the email list
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore46
Conclusion: Reading is Alive
The challenge of engaging digital natives is real. Many
do not perceive themselves to be in need of libraries.
The world of reading is huge and includes both online content and
print. Statistics that reflect reading rates for print materials may only
be a skewed representation.
Quest and Read and Reap are bridges, using a preferred method of
delivery to present content for reading and the utilization of these
bridges have shown us that reading is still very much alive.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
Thank You