SPEECH BY MR SAM TAN, PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF MINISTRY OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY & MINISTRY OF INFORMATION, COMMUNICATIONS AND THE ARTS, AT THE OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF “NewspaperSG”, ON THURSDAY 28 JANUARY 2010, 10AM AT THE POD, NATIONAL LIBRARY BUILDING

Dr N Varaprasad, Chief Executive, National Library Board,

Mr Seow Choke Meng, Executive Vice President, Administration Division cum Cultural Industry Promotion, Chinese Newspapers Division, Singapore Press Holdings Limited,

Mr Philip Koh, Managing Director of MediaCorp Press Ltd,

1.             Good morning!  I am pleased to join all of you today for the official launch of NLB’s “NewspaperSG” service, an online initiative of the National Library Singapore that provides access to digitised newspaper archives.

2.             Arthur Miller, a famous American playwright, once said, “A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.” And he was right. Newspapers are a treasured heritage and a national resource because they chronicle the country’s social history, and provide a voice for the people.  As a young nation that seeks to build its national identity, the launch of NewspaperSG comes at an opportune time for those who wish to learn more about Singapore’s past.

3.         This idea to offer online access to digitised newspaper archives began in July 2007, when the National Library Board (NLB) and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) signed an agreement to digitise copies of The Straits Times.  The issues will date as far back as 1845, with the digitised archival content available to the public at NLB libraries.  Prior to this new service, there were only slightly more than 3000 viewings of the old microfilm copies per month.  I have been told that since its soft launch in March last year, NewspaperSG has seen an average of 18,000 visits and 75,000 monthly page views. This is a huge increase, and a very welcomed one.

4.                     The National Library Singapore is one of the few libraries in the world to have secured the rights to digitise all past issues of major newspapers in a particular country.  Today, NLB will be signing a second agreement with SPH for the access to all SPH newspapers, and the extended coverage of newspaper content and services.  NLB will also be signing an agreement with MediaCorp for NLB to make past issues of TODAY accessible to the public through NewspaperSG. I believe this will create a richer source of resources for researchers, students and our general public.

5.         Apart from offering digitised newspaper content both on-site and remotely, in the past few years, NLB has also made significant breakthroughs by making digital content on NLB’s websites, such as Singapore Infopedia, searchable on Google, Yahoo and MSN.  This has increased the use of NLB’s digital content. Three years ago, we only had several hundreds of page views per month.  Now, we can see an increase of more than 250 times to over 250,000 page views per month today. This greatly improves the access to valuable information for users who can now search and find them at anytime.

6.         We seek to foster a connected and well-read society. NewspaperSG helps enrich our collection of heritage resources leveraging today’s technology to empower every one of us.  In turn, I hope this will also contribute towards a stronger sense of national identity and rootedness among the people.  This initiative also puts us a step towards fulfilling NLB’s Library 2010 masterplan, to build on our nation’s knowledge assets.

7.         Let me take this opportunity to thank both media companies for collaborating with NLB in this meaningful national endeavour.  I look forward to reading up on Singapore’s past events with the ease of online access.  I also look forward to the exhibition which features a selection of past newspaper articles on topics that affected the daily lives of Singaporeans. I am sure we will discover nuggets of Singapore’s rich and diverse history through this NewspaperSG service and the exhibition.