Dr Brendan Luyt was at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in October 2009 and gave a talk on “Developing a Public Library System for Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s“.  Here is a short abstract of his paper.

Developing a Public Library System for Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s

The 1950s and 1960s were turbulent years for much of Africa and Asia as nationalist calls for freedom succeeded in dismantling the old colonial empires of Britain and France. That the “wind of change,” as former United Kingdom PM Harold Macmillan characterized these calls in 1960, also affected the world of libraries should not be surprising. My aim is to look at three social, political and economic factors operating at the time and the effects they had on Singapore’s public library system: the colonial inheritance, ethnic issues, and the geopolitical situation. Together, these three factors proved instrumental in shaping many of the key policies of the emerging public library system in independent Singapore. Their story is important, not only to correct an overly Western centric focus in the field, but also as a reminder of the role social and political context plays in the creation and development of any library system.