Experience from IFLA/ALP Attachment Program By Sarapee Srisuk, Reference Librarian Main Library, Kasetsart University BKK, Thailand ______________________________________________________

It was a great pleasure for me to gain experience through IFLA support to attend a four - week - attachment program called “Professional Internship Programme for International Librarian (PIPIL)”. This programme was hosted by Nanyang Technical University Library, Singapore.

In this programme, I could gain various experiences through working with NTU library staff in daily operations at various divisions as well as participating in their planning and management meeting. Moreover, the programme also included library visiting which allowed me to visit other libraries in Singapore and that gave me a chance to view local library environment.

During this programme, I truly gained many new experiences by working with NTU Library staff at different divisions.

In the first week, I learned about library organization, staffing and strategy and general information and services of NTU Library, while the second week, I visited the Bibliographic Service Division (BSD) to learn about cataloging service and I also visited the Humanities and Social Sciences Library to know more about humanities and social sciences resources. I also had sessions on library promotion work and attended the library management meeting, this was liked library head meeting at my work place.

I started my third week at Instruction Service Division by attending and observing in the Endnote training class. Luckily, I had a chance to visit the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information to study about Information Studies resources. On this week, NTU Library held the activity called “E-Resource Fair” to promote their electronic resources to their students and staff. I attended the meeting to discuss on preparing, participating and evaluation of this activity. I finished this week at Library Communication Session, the University Librarian discussed with all library staff about library plan and other related issues.

During the fourth week, I got a chance to visit NUS Library, Singapore Press Holding Library and National Library Board of Singapore. I learned more about library management and services in Singapore including people and students’ education and learning behavior.

As a reference librarian, I finished this programme at Information Desk, this allowed me to contact directly with users and learned more about reference services at NTU library that was very useful for me to apply with my work. Finally, I ended the programme at final reviewing with the University Librarian. I think this programme is very useful for professional librarians to learn and share experiences and I hope NTU Library will continue this programme in order to let other librarians especially in Asian region to have a good chance like me.

Lastly, I would like to thank Mr. Choy Fatt Cheong, University Librarian of Nanyang Technical University Library for hosting this programme and providing all facilities during my training period. I also thank to all NTU Library staff for sharing their work experiences and their warm welcome during my four weeks training course and I also express my sincere thank to Ms. Catherine Tan, Head of Library Promotion for all her kind help during my stay at NTU.