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Tampines Regional Library, Children’s collection 新加坡淡滨尼区域图书馆童书馆藏 Novum Organum Publishing House, a subsidiary of Popular Holdings Limited, is one of the book suppliers for the Singapore National Library Board and a one-stop provider for important services such as bibliographic information, procurement, despatch, cataloguing, and delivery. Although the work is complicated and repetitive in nature, Novum Organum has remained quietly dedicated to the task for a decade, maintaining professional standards in all its services. The Novum Organum office is located in one corner on the sixth floor of POPULAR Headquarters. Every year, tens of thousands of books travel through here to public libraries, college libraries, and primary and secondary school libraries. Rising to the Top It has been 10 years since Novum Organum became one of the first book suppliers to the National Library Board of Singapore in 2011. At the time, this was new territory for Novum Organum, but it managed to navigate an unfamiliar field, marching towards a breakthrough with determination. Under the leadership and efforts of then manager Julie Sim, Novum Organum made a successful bid with the government, thus beginning its journey as one of the reputable professional book suppliers for the National Library Board. channels. Its capable team works quickly to digest and organise massive amounts of bibliographic data for the Library. In terms of supplying books, Novum Organum also leads the way with the support of POPULAR’s resources. For example, the distribution of publishing houses in China is geographically widely spread. Even with the COVID-19 pandemic, it has maintained steady communication with the publishers via POPULAR’s networks. POPULAR’s procurement centre in Beijing has also ensured that a portion of the library’s orders have a stable supply, helping Novum Organum to maintain a critical supply rate. A Tower of Books Obtaining orders from the library, completing procurement, and importing books is only half of the entire book supply workflow. Another crucial part of the process is the cataloguing of books. The Greater China region is the main source of Chinese books, with over 300,000 new titles published in Mainland China and about 30,000 titles in Taiwan each year. The publishing market shifts constantly, with a dizzying number of new titles taking the place of older releases. If new titles are to stand out on the shelves of the library, they need the help of organisations such as Novum Organum. With abundant resources for new books, the National Library is a top-tier customer in the book market, with its pick of the books. As the technology continues to improve, the library has become stricter and more efficient in its book selection processes, requiring that each book be scored by the system based on comprehensive information, price, delivery, and so on, before an order is made. It is difficult for a new book to make its way into the Library’s shelves as the process is akin to a competitive public auction in miniature. Faced with an ever-changing market and fierce competition, Novum Organum has firmly grasped its market advantages, consistently providing accurate and timely bibliographic data recommending books. Backed by POPULAR’s various branch offices, procurement centres, and publishing centres in the Greater China region, Novum Organum has been able to deliver such critical information to the heart of the market for new books, while also establishing its own market information 14 - popularnews 136 Winny Ooi Weina 黄维娜 (Clerical Assistant 文书助理)