Starting from Friday (2 October), the customers of the National Library Board (NLB) can sign up for a new children’s book subscription service, which will run for nine-month from November 2020 until July 2021, said NLB on Thursday (1 October).
By subscribing to this new subscription service called “The Little Book Box”, the customers can expect to receive a curated selection of eight English children’s books, which will be picked from a variety of fiction and non-fiction books, as reported by TODAY.
Covering a wide range of children’s interest, the books are also catered for two age groups, which are from four to six years old and seven to nine years old.
Meanwhile the customers who sign up for this nine-month subscription service will have to pay a monthly fee of S$10.70, inclusive of GST.
Speaking about the idea of this new service, NLB revealed that it had conducted a survey earlier this year to find out from customer whether there was a demand for such a service.
In response, majority of the 2,000 respondents were “receptive to the idea”, said NLB.
It also said that it will consider extending the service beyond July next year and expand the scale of the service, depending on the customers’ response to the service.
For this service, a minimum subscription period of three months is required and it will be automatically renewed for another three months unless terminated.
The subscription service is available on a first-come, first-serve basis as it will be capped at 1,000 subscribers.
According to NLB, subscribers will be given 21 days – excluding the delivery time – as the loan duration for the books received.
“Subscribers can return the books at any of the 25 public libraries across the island,” NLB said, adding that the late returns as usual will have to pay the overdue fines.
It also noted that subscribers can continue to borrow up to 16 books from the library given that the subscription does not fall within the usual library loan quota.
Other than this, NLB has also partnered with the Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund to sponsor up to 200 children from low-income families for this children book’s subscription service so as to ensure that the service is accessible to low-income families.
