At its annual Donors’ Appreciation Night on 23 October 2026, the National Library and Archives Board (NLB) announced a new book about a Spanish armada that anchored off Singapore in 1616. Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo also shared an update on the Library of Mistakes Singapore, which NLB plans to launch in Q1 2027. Together, they give anyone curious about Singapore’s past, or nervous about their next money decision, something to look forward to in 2027.
A Fleet in Our Waters
The book is Armada: A Spanish Fleet in Singapore Waters 1616 by historian Peter Borschberg, and the National Library of Singapore (NLS) will release it. It reconstructs the rise and collapse of the fleet. NLB calls the armada “little-known” and says the episode “briefly placed the island at the centre of global imperial strategy”. For anyone who assumed Singapore’s story only kicks off in 1819, that’s a great twist to bring up at your next family dinner!
The armada is part of NLB’s wider push to deepen understanding of Singapore’s ties to the world before 1819. Teo announced that Dr Anthony Disney, whom NLB describes as a leading researcher on the Portuguese empire in Asia, has donated over 1,000 works on the subject, dating from 1669 to 2015. NLS is also working with the University of Lisbon to identify materials on Singapore and Southeast Asia held in Portuguese libraries and archives, so they can be digitised and studied. The digitisation is the part to watch, because it could put records sitting in Lisbon within reach of readers here.
Mistakes, but Make Them Useful
The Library of Mistakes was founded in Edinburgh as a free-to-use library dedicated to financial history and to how societies learn from past decisions. NLB first announced the Singapore branch in 2025 and plans to launch it in Q1 2027, although opening plans like these can shift. According to NLB, its curated collection will cover fraud, economics, financial history, risk and decision-making.
NLB is pitching it at students, investors, business owners, people in banking and finance, and anyone simply interested in financial history. Fraud is the topic we’d head to first, since other people’s costly errors make for gripping reading and cost you nothing.
Close to 11,000 New Items
NLS and the National Archives of Singapore (NAS) received close to 11,000 items over the past year, and NLB counted donations from 86 donors in its 2025 financial year. Among them are items on the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia, recordings of dances performed and choreographed by pioneer ballet dancer Cecilia Hon, and music notations, programme booklets and concert ephemera from classical flautist Ghanavenothan Retnam‘s personal archives.
Our pick is Hon’s dance collection. A performance disappears when the curtain falls, so a record of it is about as rare as heritage gets. NLB chief executive Melissa Tam said each donation “opens a new window into Singapore’s past”.
How to Dig In Now
You don’t need to wait for 2027. NLS and NAS collections are searchable through National Library Online and Archives Online, and anyone with materials worth keeping can donate them directly to NLB. If you want something hands-on, Singapore Memories: Documenting Our Stories Together is an expansion of the Citizen Archivist project by the NAS. Through it, members of the public describe photographs and transcribe and translate record labels and oral history recordings.
A 1616 fleet off our coast and a library built on bad money calls make a strong case that Singapore’s history is stranger, and more useful, than the textbook version. Keep an eye on the National Library Board for the release of Armada and for the Library of Mistakes Singapore’s opening in Q1 2027, and browse National Library Online in the meantime!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of the National Library Board.
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