SINGAPORE – With her twin boys in tow, Ms Keenbie Kok would typically spend less than half an hour at most libraries on each visit.

The 42-year-old housewife said she would be embarrassed when librarians shushed her sons, who have autism, for being noisy.

But at the toy library located on the first floor of the five-storey Punggol Regional Library, her 11-year-old boys, Victor and Vernon Chua, can play with brightly coloured educational toys without restrictions.

The toys, such as a xylophone, an erasable board and stackable rings, are meant for creative play and to develop fine and gross motor skills.

“My children are very comfortable here. There are a lot of pods and resting areas. They don’t have to sit down and read quietly,” Ms Kok said, while her children were engrossed in play with a toy drum and a shape-matching toy.

Ms Kok, whose family lives in Punggol, said that sometimes she would walk 20 minutes from her home with her children to visit the library every week, and spends an hour or two there each time.

They are among visitors in the past year who have made use of the library’s unique accessibility features for those with disabilities.

It is Singapore’s first public library with an extensive suite of services created with and designed for persons with disabilities – from wider aisles and lower shelves for wheelchair users, to multi-coloured keyboards with large keys for those with visual impairments.

Since its soft opening in January 2023 and official opening four months later, the library has served a diverse range of visitors. For example, there are calm pods – quiet and safe spaces with wall and floor padding for those with sensory needs – which are used daily.

The library marked its first anniversary on April 6 with games, craft activities and performances by students from the charity Suncare SG.

It was the most visited public library in 2023 with 1.3 million visitors and 2.15 million loans, said the deputy director of Punggol Regional Library, Ms Verena Lee.

Community partnerships, including volunteers, have contributed to the library over the last year, said Ms Lee.

“Some of our volunteers have a special passion for helping persons with disabilities, and one of them has even been attempting to create tactile versions of the artefacts in the Punggol Stories exhibition to help persons with visual impairment to experience it as well.

“We have hosted many visits from disability agencies and the disability community in the past year, for them to understand, use and draw inspiration from these accessibility features,” she added.

Ms Kok said she was touched when a librarian approached her to introduce the calm pods. While her sons have not used the pods, she was impressed with them and said they are useful spaces for parents of children with autism.

To encourage play among children aged seven to 12, the library has a Spark!Lab™ tinkering space set up in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution in the US, with hands-on activities to create solutions to different problems. The space has seen over 80,000 visitors in 2023 and long queues every weekend, Ms Lee said.

Adults and seniors can learn about fabrication technologies at a MakeIT space, which is littered with brightly coloured decorations made from 3D printing.

The area is accessible to wheelchair users, with wider space and cables hung overhead instead of being laid on the floor.

Over six months, Mr Peter Chin, 54, who works in the information technology and education sector, learnt how to use a 3D pen and tried his hand at 3D printing, robotics and sewing, all for free at the MakeIT space. He hopes to learn videography next.

The Punggol resident had initially visited the library to borrow books to learn baking recipes, before chancing upon the MakeIT community.

Madam Suyanti Limam, 42, a housewife who lives in Punggol, takes a shopping trolley to the library every two weeks with her two children, aged seven and three. They return home with it filled to the brim with books.

“I don’t want my kids to watch TV a lot,” she said, adding that she hopes they will spend more time reading.

Her son enjoys books on buses and trains, while her daughter loves books about princesses and fantasy, she said.

The library team has received feedback over the past year and continues to improve the experience for users with disabilities. Acting on feedback, it is working on developing an audio guide in certain spaces for persons with visual impairment, said Ms Lee.

More hands-on learning activities have been lined up, including a volunteer-run Malay reading club that will start from April 27. From April 6, visitors can also enjoy an immersive storytelling experience with StoryGen in the library’s Stories Come Alive Room, a generative AI-enabled prototype that allows users to choose their own adventures in well-loved stories. StoryGen was first introduced in another library, the Central Public Library.

Ms Kok likes that there is a book collection for people with special needs, which helps her children to pick up social cues and daily skills, such as brushing teeth.

She hopes other libraries in Singapore can be modelled after Punggol Regional Library and create more inclusive spaces.

“I strongly encourage all parents to come here,” she said. “It really is a perfect place.”