ISEAS Library Annual Review FY 2017
I COLLECTION BUILDING
Acquisition of Books & Serials
In FY17/18, the Library purchased 1,738 new publications, about 9% less than the previous financial year. Our international exchange partners contributed a further 143 books and 68 serial titles to the collection, a decrease of 15% year-on-year. The Library currently subscribes to 16 international newspapers, 14 published in the Southeast Asian region. The number of hardcopy newspapers was further reduced to 12 as subscription costs continue to rise and more newspapers are now available for online access. Through subscription to six electronic databases, namely Bibliography of Asian Studies, JSTOR, Project Muse, ProQuest, Stratfor Global Intelligence Brief, and Economist Intelligence Unit, our users have access to 9,600 e-journal and e-newspaper titles.
Private Papers Collection
(Left) Mrs Margaret Wang, Prof Wang Gungwu, Mr Pitt Kuan Wah, Dr Leo Suryadinata and Mr Gao Jiankang looking at part of the collection on display at the event; (Right) Participants viewing selected materials from Wang Gungwu Collection on display at the event.
Photographs from the Made Wijaya Collection. (Top left): Ubud, Bali; (Top right): Candi Penataran, Blitar, Java; (Bottom left): Desa Bayunggede, Bangli, Bali; (Bottom right): Merajan Agung Puri Pejeng, Ubud Bali.
Audio-Visual Collection
The Library archived approximately 231 hours of audio and video recordings of 99 seminars, conferences, workshops, and symposiums organised by the Institute.
II COLLECTION MANAGEMENT
The Library has 250,277 titles in its print collection, of which those published in vernacular languages of the region made up 52% as shown in Figure 1.

III LIBRARY AUTOMATION
SEALion Online Catalogue
The SEALion registered an 86% increase in search sessions year-on-year. Four geographical regions contributed to almost 99% of our users: Southeast Asia, Europe, the Americas and East Asia. Within the Southeast Asia region, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand were the top three usage groups. Table 1 has the breakdown.
Table 1: Virtual User Sessions on SEALion Online Catalogue
Continents | FY14/15 | FY15/16 | FY16/17 | FY17/18 |
Africa | 14 | 17 | 8 | 0 |
Americas | 237 | 506 | 219 | 188 |
Europe | 149 | 364 | 809 | 125 |
Oceania | 70 | 94 | 63 | 165 |
Central Asia | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
East Asia | 124 | 247 | 167 | 108 |
West Asia | 7 | 16 | 15 | 5 |
South Asia | 44 | 55 | 37 | 109 |
Southeast Asia | 12,634 | 13,643 | 13,526 | 27,177 |
Undetectable sources | 59 | 171 | 110 | 3 |
All | 13,340 | 15,113 | 14,954 | 27,880 |
SealionPLUS for Online Access to Digitised Contents
Whilst SEALion is a platform for searching published books and journals available in the Library for loans, SealionPLUS allows registered users to search and access digitised materials from the Library’s non-print collections: Private Papers, photographs, audio visual recordings of seminar proceedings, oral history interviews and the Library’s daily selection of news articles from online sources. Like SEALion, users of SealionPLUS mainly came from the Southeast Asian region (62%). The other users that showed a strong presence came from Europe and North America (20%) and East/South Asia (16%). Table 2 below shows the usage of digitised contents by media types:
Table 2: Usage of digitised contents on SealionPLUS
Collection | Unique page views1 in FY16/17 |
Unique page views1 in FY17/18 |
Photographs | 25(5%) | 496(29%) |
Private Papers | 139 (29%) | 308(18%) |
News Articles & Commentaries | 129 (27%) | 282(16%) |
Miscellaneous Print2 | 79(17%) | 195(11%) |
ISEAS Publications | 39 (8%) | 188(11%) |
Oral History Interviews | 14(3%) | 97(6%) |
AV Recordings | 29(6%) | 66(4%) |
Digitised Newspapers | 12 (3%) | 34(2%) |
Theses& Dissertations3 | – | 29(2%) |
Maps | 10 (2%) | 17(1%) |
Total | 476 (100%) | 1,712(100%) |
1The number of sessions during which the specified page was viewed at least once (this excludes the scenario where a user keeps refreshing the same page within the same period of time).
2This consists of the Ding Choo Ming Pantun Collection and the ISEAS Library Selection of Journal Articles.
3The Theses & Dissertations collection was created in FY17/18 and contains theses deposited by various universities in the Southeast Asian region.
Collection Stocktake
Following two comprehensive stocktakes over the last five years, the Library performed a partial stocktake of 25% of RFID-tagged titles, amounting to 49,181 volumes. A total of 567 books were selected for minor repairs and close to 1,600 faded labels were replaced at the end of the exercise.
Info Alert Service
The Library released a total of 382 Info Alerts (totalling 24,404 selected articles). Since FY13/14, a total of 114,101 articles have been added to our newspapers/journals collection. This financial year also saw 67 new subscribers added to the Info Alerts mailing lists, 85% of whom were external users.
IV LIBRARY VISITORS
The Library recorded a total visitorship of 5,739 this year, about 30% from external. Among them were students and delegates from the Centre for ASEAN Studies (Cambodia), Raja Ali Haji Maritime University (Indonesia) National Library of China, and Singapore Management University. The Library also received ISEAS Distinguished Fellow Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of the Kingdom of Thailand.
The following are examples of feedback received from visitors about the Library and the Yusof Ishak Gallery.
- “I learned more about Singapore; it’s nice to know more about President Yusof Ishak.”
- “I belong to the fortunate generation who knew Encik Yusof Ishak, a beloved statesman, and Puan Noor Aishah. They made Singaporeans proud. Thank you for this exhibition, ISEAS.”
- “一个好的图书馆是进行求知研学的第一步。你们在如此优秀的图书馆,真的为你们骄傲,愿ISEAS越办越好。(A good library is the first step leading to knowledge and research. I am proud of you for having such an excellent library. I wish ISEAS every success in future endeavours.) ”
Highlights of Library visits. (Top left) Students from Centre for ASEAN Studies, Cambodia, 11 April 2017; (Top right) Students from Archaeology Field School, 14 August 2017; (Bottom left) Visit by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of the Kingdom of Thailand, 21 January 2018; (Bottom right) ISEAS research officer showing foreign visitors the Exhibition at ISEAS Library, 20 March 2018.
V LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION
Work Experience Program (WEP)
The Library conducted its 5th run of the Work Experience Programme with Raffles Girls’ School in November 2017. The students worked on various tasks including the processing of private papers and digitised microfilm images, collection stocktake, etc. Through the programme, students gained a better and deeper understanding of the professional role of librarians in supporting research and how the various departments of the Library interact internally to provide services to library users.
Highlights from RGS Programme 2017. (Top left) processing of private papers; (Top right) processing of digitised microfilm images; (Bottom left) collection stocktake using RFID device; (Bottom right) Group presentation sharing the work experience at ISEAS Library.