CDNLAO Newsletter
No. 73, March/April 2012
Introduction
PictureSG (http://pictures.nl.sg) is a collection of pictures that provide information about the socio-cultural and historical development of Singapore. This website, officially launched on 28 November 2011, is a showcase of yet another of the National Library Board's (NLB) continued efforts in preserving the nation's heritage and ensuring the accessibility of its vast and rich resources to the masses. This service greatly facilitates the discovery of all the image resources residing in NLB's collection. An estimated 20,000 pictures were added in this initial phase. The site also introduced tags - descriptive keywords added to the images to facilitate their retrieval - to allow the public to contribute information about the pictures.
The Collection
The almost unforgiving rate of urbanisation in Singapore means that pictures are often the only reminders of the many buildings that once lined our streets and the type of events and lifestyles that have shaped each generation of Singaporeans. As such, the National Library of Singapore (NLS) has been steadily building its collection of images throughout the years, collecting and digitizing images for preservation and future access. Other than the generous donations of photographs from donors and contributions collected through massive heritage road shows, NLS staff also contributed much to it by personally capturing images of history as it happens across the island.
NLS also reaches out to potential partners, be it sister agencies or commercial entities, to contribute as they too, have valuable image resources, that would definitely add to the richness of the collection. All these contributions will hopefully, in the future, come together to form one complete visual memoir of Singapore.
The Website
Design and Interface
The website's interface is designed to be dynamic as the set of images are changed each time the site is refreshed. This also facilitates discovery of content available on PictureSG as there is always something new for the user to see. The design is intuitive and user friendly with the search box positioned at eye level. Users can also share their discoveries on PictureSG via popular social networking websites such as Facebook and Tumblr simply by one click. They can also save the image directly into NLB's mylibrary Facebook application.
Content
Many pictures uploaded on this site documented changes in the cityscape in the course of Singapore's urban renewal process. Many familiar landmarks and street scenes of Singapore from a bygone era have been sacrificed at the expense of development. With PictureSG, users can tap on our images for a taste of nostalgia. In fact, we have seen users online enthusing on the pictures via emails, various blogs and forums, as "something every Singaporean holds very close to their hearts".
Tagging
One important feature introduced in PictureSG is the tagging function. It is hoped that with this function, users would be able to share information that they know of the images with us. At the same time, these tags will also help other users find images more easily. The search function also allows searching by tags as well, to allow users to fully utilise the function. The tags can be entered in all four official languages of Singapore.
Current Usage and Future Developments
PictureSG is averaging around 35,000 views per month since its official launch and we have had users come forth with compliments and suggestions for the website.
"I absolutely love the pictures.nl.sg collection of old photos. Growing up at a time when we didn't have cameras, these long disappeared locations were mere mental figments until I saw photos of old Kovan/upper Serangoon. I was very nostalgic. So too my mother who grew up in the area. You have done a great service to preserve living memories." - Khoo Kay Yong
This is particularly encouraging as it shows that more people are recognizing its value and are coming forth to use the website. Moving forward, there will be other developments to the website, such as enabling reuse of the available content, refinement of its search capabilities to allowing public contributions. In the near future, PictureSG looks set to become the visual memoir of Singapore as it aspires to preserve the past and capture the present.
Ng Hui Ling
Associate Librarian
Lee Kong Chian Reference Library
Copyright (C) 2012 National Library Board
