If you wish to receive a scholarship just like Mardhiah, look out for our call in November 2020!
Mardhiah Binte Mahamood joined National Library Board (NLB) in 2011 as an Associate Librarian in the Children Services section. After several internal restructures, Mardhiah returned to the Early Literacy section in 2018 as an Associate Librarian. The Early Literacy section focusses on serving and creating content for children aged six and below, their parents, and pre-school educators.
She is part of the Early Read programme that aims to furnish educators with proficiencies to inculcate reading habits in children as well as providing support and guidance to parents who wish to have their children adopt early reading habits. Since its inception in 2013, Early Read has reached out to about 410,000 participants and 12,500 children from lower-income families yearly through their various projects and via the READ@Community bulk loan service to reach out to preschools, especially to children from lower-income families.
Mardhiah was involved in the 2017 edition of the Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) project where she liaised with the then National Book Development Council of Singapore (currently known as the Singapore Book Council) with logistic matters. Mardhiah has also curated a bibliography on Indonesian Children’s Literature for this project.
She is also part of the team for “NLB’s Babies can be Members, Too!” programme that was launched in an effort to make reading an essential part of families’ lives. Mardhiah contributed by creating content and packages for parents to bond with their babies over books.
As the current Project Manager for the NLB’s Activity Toolkit project, her team curates content for the Activity Toolkit. The content for the project covers activities to promote reading amongst children and aims to introduce educators to the different kinds of genres in children’s literature varying from ages six and below.
Last year, Mardhiah was also part of the annual signature event “2019 edition of The Early Childhood Conference and Exhibition” (ECC) organised by the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA). Being in the team has allowed Mardhiah to contribute ideas on how parents and pre-school educators can make outdoor learning fun, exciting and developmental for children. The team has also planned for mini roadshows to be run at selected Public Libraries. Being an active member of the ECC since 2018, Mardhiah has been given the role of Project Manager for ECC 2020.
In the words of her reporting officer, “Mardhiah is a valuable member and is an asset to National Library Board. She has exhibited excellent professionalism in her relations with her fellow colleagues as well as to patrons at the library. Her effectiveness and efficiency, and responsibility has made her well-liked amongst library staff of all levels.”
Mardiah is currently pursuing the Master of Science in Information Studies at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) since July 2019.
In recognition of her accomplishments and in view of her potential for making further contributions to librarianship in the years ahead, LAS is delighted to award Mardhiah Binte Mahamood with the 2019 LAS Library School Scholarship Award.