Redesigning as Process

Working with Dr Loh Chin Ee from the National Institute of Education, and with the support of the Curriculum Planning and Development Division at the Ministry of Education (Singapore), the school embarked on the journey to update their school library in 2019. A library task force, comprising one of the vice principals, the English Head of Department, the Library Coordinator and a group of teachers, was setup to oversee the project.

Drawing on the 21st Century School Library Framework and equipped with design thinking principles, a group of volunteer students from Cedar canvassed feedback from their peers and came up with proposals for the new library. This allowed decision makers to be cued into the needs and pain points of the users and address them accordingly.

“The result of that process is a revamped Library serving as a place for reading, engaged learning, advocacy and discussion. Spaces in the library have been designed to meet each purpose.”

Miss Gemma Pereira, Library Co-ordinator
(Cedar Girls’ Secondary School)

In the spirit of student-centred learning, the library innovations are driven by students and supported by teachers. Other than the initial team of volunteers that set out to redesign the library space, a second group of student volunteers helped to set up the library space and programming and came up with the Library Ambassadors initiative between 2021 and 2022.

They have since passed the torch to a new EXCO who will continue to innovate for a future-ready, student-centric school library.

Being able to get inspiration from the numerous design elements of the different libraries proved extremely useful, especially when it came to the ideation of certain elements such as our amphitheater and pods. On top of that, getting to see how users of the libraries interact with the space was integral in forming our vision of what the word space could become.

Cedar Social Innovation Team (Class of 2020)

One of the hallmarks of the new library isn’t so much the physical hardware of the library, but the “heartware”.

The team at Cedar, having internalised the “Empathize - Define — Ideate - Prototype - Test” process, are consistently applying it to the library.

Students had provided feedback, asking for study and discussion spaces. The library task force proto-typed the idea of a discussion pod by installing a single unit to test the feasibility and usefulness in the library.

“The single pod was purchased first to try out. The trial yielded positive results and we decided to follow-through and purchased the larger discussion pods.”

Miss Gemma Pereira

This approach is important. Instead of seeing the library as “finished” once major structural changes are completed, the library instead becomes a “living” facility - something which has the capacity to grow, evolve and change when the needs of the population it serves changes.

The discussion pods, which are equipped with writable walls, are very popular with students, and are highly utilised for collaborative work.

At a student-level, student library ambassadors take charge and run thematic book displays in consultation with the library committee and library officer. During Valentine’s Day, the library ambassadors worked to run a “Blind Date with a Book” event and provide black out poetry opportunities alongside a thematic book display. Other events include movie screenings and an Easter Sci-Fi scavenger hunt.

There is also a concerted effort to integrate the library as part of the school’s curriculum. Events such as the Mother Tongue Fortnight make use of the library as a display space for student projects. During the school’s literature festival, teachers took their classes to the library to search for poetry and to conduct poetry slam sessions in the multipurpose space.

The school also adopted a new zoning strategy. Level 1 of the library is demarcated as a reading/browsing zone. At the design of space stage, the library was demarcated into display, fiction and non-fiction sections, which allow for easy browsing. The bookshelves can accommodate more than 20,000 books as the collection expands. Built-in nooks and seats next to the shelves allowed students to sit down comfortably once a book had been selected to read.

On Level 2, the space has been setup as a quiet studying and doing space. Individual study carrels as well as long tables have been setup here to allow a variety of individual/group study.

It’s a good thing that the reading and studying floors are separate for people who want to chit-chat and read and for people who want to seriously study and do their homework.

Belinda, Secondary 2 student

A CCTV system with a monitor at L1 was later set up. The monitor allowed the library officer to keep track of the upstairs usage but also served the un-anticipated but useful purpose of allowing students to check if seats were available before heading upstairs.

The new library also features this amphitheatre-styled multi-purpose space. Built into the high-ceiling space on L1, the space can be used for talks, workshops or classes.

This area also serves as an informal hang-out spot for students after school.

The school also installed a photocopier in the library. Although students are technologically connected, studies on reading comprehension continue to show that print is better for comprehension of lengthy and abstract content. Having this particular amenity supports the library’s role as a learning hub.

A public chalk wall was placed on L2 for students to draw and doodle on. Students were encouraged to use the space to creatively express themselves and left words of motivations for their peers.

In a pre-renovation user survey, it was found that students would like to have more contemporary and relevant books, both fiction and non-fiction. At the same time, the library task force felt it was important to stretch the students’ reading. When renewing the book collection, these aims were kept in mind.

A feature wall was integrated into a prominent segment of the library to feature books by subject, displayed front-facing and sorted via their respective genres, to help students discover new titles. The library officer rotates the books on display. Both students and teachers browse and borrow books from these shelves.

Besides practicing genre-based shelving for the display shelves and selected fiction genres, the library kept the alphabetical and Dewey Decimal System for the bulk of their collection. These shelves were well-labelled to enable users to find their books rapidly.

In Singapore’s bilingual education system, Mother Tongue books are also very important and occupy a core section behind the display shelves.

Other than the book collection, the library committee is exploring how subscriptions to educational content may be able to help Cedarians learn better.