Title: Colonialism, Ethnicity, and Geopolitics in the Development of the Singapore National Library
Abstract: This article addresses the social, political, and economic forces that influenced the development of the Singapore National Library in the 1950s and 1960s.Singapore inherited a British colonial system that neglected both the education of indigenous residents and library development.A major impetus for the development of a national library came as the country moved toward independence in the 1950s and '60s, and it became politically necessary to provide a multilingual rather than a predominantly English-language library.After independence, the Singapore National Library collections and policies were influenced by the censorship imposed by the government in power in the early 1960s.This article examines these three social factorscolonial inheritance, ethnic issues, and the geopolitical situation -and the effects they had on the early development of the Singapore National Library.The decades of 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 British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan characterized these calls in 1960, also affected the world of libraries should not be surprising.During those stormy years, the fledgling country of Singapore established its national library, incorporating the collections of a colonial library set up to serve English-language readers.How did the Singapore National Library develop into a multi-lingual, professional, public service library, and what influenced its initial policies?My aim is to look at three social factors operating at the time and the effects they had on the early development of the Singapore National Library: colonial inheritance, ethnic issues, and the post-World War II geopolitical situation.Together, these three factors proved instrumental in shaping many of the key policies of the emerging national library in independent Singapore.The library's story is important, not only as a counterbalance to a Western-centric focus in the library history field, but also as a reminder of the role social and political context plays in the creation and development of any library system.