Toa Payoh Community Library

The Toa Payoh Community Library (Chinese: 大巴窑社区图书馆) is an established library located in the Toa Payoh Town Centre, opened on 7 February 1974. It consists of three floors and has a large floor area of approximately 4125 m².

History

The library was initially opened on 7 February 1974 by Sha'ari Tadin, the then Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Culture, in the place of Jek Yuen Thong, the then Minister for Culture. Initially called Toa Payoh Branch Library, it then changed its name to the current "Toa Payoh Community Library" on 1 September 1995, after the National Library Board became a statutory board. [cite web|url=http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_959_2005-01-03.html|title=Toa Payoh Community Library|accessdaymonth=10 July|accessyear=2008|last=Wong|first=Heng|coauthors=Thulaja, Naidu Ratnala|date=2000-03-28|year=2000|month=March]

It then went under major renovation in 1997, before reopening on 9 May 1999 by Mr Wong Kan Seng, the then Minister for Home Affairs. It then featured new facilities for the benefit of its users, such as the Senior Citizens' Room.

First floor

The first floor has a large array of story books for children 6-12 years old, and has several shelves of information books, as well as books in the four official languages of Singapore, which are English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil language.

It also has a ship structure within the Children's section, which shelves children's books and also allows children to sit in the inside. It carries the theme of "Treasure Island", which encourages the children to explore and imagine. [cite web|url=http://www.nlb.gov.sg/library/images/LibInfo-TPCL.pdf|title=Toa Payoh Community Library|accessdaymonth=10 July|accessyear=2008]

One can also access the neighbouring Délifrance cafe from the first floor, which is connected to the library.

econd floor

This floor has all other kinds of books, such as adult fiction, magazines, and AV materials. There are also several IT facilities on this floor, such as the Photocopying Room and the Cashcard-Top-up counter. On top of that, there is also a Senior Citizens' Room and a Newspaper Reading Room for a quiet reading environment.

This floor used to have a lot of computers on the whole floor, and less space was available for shelves and seats. These computer services were for users to have paid access to the Internet. The computers were also relatively old. However, after NLB's recent upgrading of computer services, they have reduced the number to 10, and upgraded the computers to newer ones as well.

Third floor

This floor is the Teen's Zone, where there are fiction books for teenagers, as well as a large space for them to carry out project meetings.

References