Home Library Competition

The Home Library Competition is a National Reading program of the National Library of Malaysia, implemented by all the State libraries. The program was planned to be implemented on regular basis. With guidelines and technical support from the national body, each state in Malaysia is to plan, implement and monitor its own set of the program using its own resources.

What is a Home Library?

A home library is an area in a house such as a single room, part of a room or a corner where information or reading materials are placed on furniture or equipment for the use of the whole household. It may be equipped with other equipment such as computers and may be used by others from the neighbourhood. The purpose of the library are;

a) to inculcate reading habits amongst the family members
b) to expose family members to reading materials at young ages
c) to make reading a routine family activity

The reading materials of a home library should match the information needs of the household. The collection, at the very least comprises of reference books such as dictionaries, encyclopaedias, directories, academic books and examination guides, and novels. Other materials includes maps, atlases, electronic materials, et cetera.

The Competition in Sarawak

In Sarawak, the inaugural Home Library Competition was held on a small scale in 2003. It was confined to the town areas of Kuching, Miri, Sibu and Bintulu. In 2006, the Competition was held on larger scale involving the whole state of Sarawak. It was restructured with new categories and judging criteria introduced. The 3 new categories were:

a) Home Library in a Village House
b) Home Library in an Urban Apartment and Terraced House
c) HomeLibrary in an Urban Detached and Semi-Detached House

From 2007 onwards the Competition was held bi-annually.

Program Management

The Competition is systematically handled via the following workflow

• Formation of the working committee and assignment of tasks
• Preparation of program brief
• Announcement and promotional works
• Processing of participation
• Identification and appointment of judges
• Site visit
• Determination of winners
• Announcement of winners
• Preparation of final report

Panel of Judges

The the panel of judges normally comprises of 3-5 senior librarians or officers from Pustaka Negeri Sarawak, the local authorities and university libraries. The responsibilities of a judge are

a) visit the home library as arranged by the event organisers;
b) observe the home library and interview the owner;
c) assign marks or points based on predetermined judging criteria; and
d) submit the mark to the chief judge.

The chief judge will aggregate and average out the marks of all the judges and determine the winner based on the highest score.

Home Library Workshop

The Home Library Workshop is a hands-on training on how to plan, set up, managed and maintain a home library. This specialised training is for home library owners and would-be home library owners. This 3-day workshop is normally held at least a year before the Home Library Competition is held. It had been held at major towns and districts in Sarawak.