Removal of controversial Malay books: NLB to learn from incident, but can't vet every book, says Yaacob

SINGAPORE — It is "not possible" for the National Library Board (NLB) to scrutinise every book on the shelves of public libraries, Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim said on Friday (June 9) in response to the withdrawal of a series of Malay books with controversial content.

But the board will learn from this latest episode and continue to improve its processes, he added, noting that the NLB also relies on feedback from members of the public to flag any potentially controversial reading material in the public libraries, given the volume of books it processes.

"We can never be 100 per cent foolproof, but we learn from this experience," he told reporters on the sidelines of the launch of a festival to promote reading. "We are glad that a member of the public has (given us feedback) and we have done our part and we will continue to review our processes.

"The books were first flagged by a local Twitter user, who posted photos of their controversial content on Sunday.

One of the eight books withdrawn has, on its cover, children wearing yarmulkes (skullcaps), smiling as they hold machine guns. There are also declarations of how the Third World War will “start in the Middle East between Israel and the neighbouring countries, which are the Arab states”.

Noting that the NLB had taken "decisive steps" in withdrawing the books, Dr Yaacob said that he will leave it to the NLB's Library Consultative Panel to review and decide on the matter.

This is not the first time that the NLB has withdrawn books from its libraries after receiving feedback.In July 2014, the NLB yanked two children’s book titles off its shelves after complaints from a member of the public that the books did not promote family values.