[INTERMEDIATE] Launching the “Do you know…?” series with a simple informational nugget which I realise many do not know about, after talking to a handful of other adult Singaporeans.
Do you know that all Singaporeans have free digital access to all our local newspapers?
For myself, I nearly paid for digital access to The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao, which I currently read on a daily basis, before I did a simple Google search and found out something that came as a pleasant surprise to me.
All National Library Board (NLB) members (which includes all Singapore citizens) are able to access printed editions of all Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) newspapers, stored digitally in an e-book format from the NLB app absolutely free of charge. Just tap on the “SPH Media Newspapers” section in the NLB mobile app and get up to speed with local and global news from a two-week archive at totally no cost to you.
Permanent Residents (PRs) and foreigners have to pay a small fee (which is still relatively affordable compared to the full cost of a digital newspaper subscription) in order to become an NLB member, but if you are a student currently studying in an Ministry of Education (MOE) school in Singapore, you can obtain free NLB membership regardless of your residency status. More on NLB membership here.
This has been brought up in online discussion forums, but hasn’t been well-publicised because of obvious reasons. Of course, if you prefer to have actual printed copies of SPH newspapers on hand, there’s no other way except to pay for the day’s newspapers, either from a news stand or having it delivered to your doorstep.
In this day and age, are you still paying for a digital newspaper subscription?
*Based on a monthly subscription rate of S$9.90 per month for the ST (Straits Times) One Digital package as published on the SPH website.
Image credit: Screenshot capture of the NLB mobile app
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