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Under the direction of Neville Marriner, the Academy of St Martin-in-the- Fields gave three concerts in April. These were held in the City Hall under the auspices of the Hong Kong International Music Festival Society in association with the British Council. In May, the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company of Edinburgh gave four per- formances in the City Hall under the joint auspices of the British Council and the Urban Council.
The two libraries, one at Gloucester Building on Hong Kong Island and the other at Star House in Kowloon, loaned over 98,000 books to some 8,200 members. These readers, mainly students, also made full use of the reading rooms for study, where they were provided with more than 200 British newspapers and magazines covering a wide range of subjects. On any one day during the year an average of 3,000 books out of a total of 34,000 were on loan.
Assistance was given to government departments, the Hong Kong Council of Social Services, the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association, and the two universities, to enable staff to visit British universities and other institutions, to attend specialist courses, or go on tour. Five British Council Scholarships (three for training in the teaching of English as a second language), and five Sino-British Fellowship Trust Scholarships were awarded for post-graduate studies in the United Kingdom.
The British Council also made arrangements for specialists from Britain to visit Hong Kong for consultations with government departments and universities, or to give lectures to local professional societies. Subjects covered included ophthalmology, art and design education, social services, industrial design, microbiology, cardiology, computer science, horticulture, television and broadcasting, diagnostic radiology, and higher education. Among the lengthier assignments was that of Mr David Bethel, Deputy Director of the City of Leicester Polytechnic advising the Education Depart- ment on art and design education; and Sir Misha Black, Professor of Industrial Design at the Royal College of Art, advising Hong Kong University on industrial design
courses.
At Star House, the council again provided the venue for the English section of the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival. Educational films from a library of locally held prints were lent to a large number of schools and other institutions. Several feature- films of artistic and literary interest, along with specialist medical films were obtained from London and also shown to schools, university departments, and hospital staff. At the City Hall theatre in August, the British Council and the Urban Council jointly presented Lord Clark's outstanding series of 13 colour films entitled 'Civilisation', as part of the tenth anniversary celebrations of the opening of the City Hall. Some 11,000 people attended these showings.
The British Council continued to give advice and information to students leaving for higher studies in Britain. Close co-operation was maintained with the Education Department, and a large number of students were met and assisted by the council on arrival in London.