RECREATION AND THE ARTS
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Planning on the third, but probably the most ambitious park, which will occupy the old Lei Yue Mun Army Barracks site, has started and the project is expected to be completed by 1994-5. Meanwhile, the park has been brought into operation as a holiday village and activity centre. Overnight hostel accommodation is provided for visitors who can enjoy a wide range of both indoor and outdoor activities such as tennis, gardening, football, trail walking, bicycling, playground activities and table-tennis. When completed, the new park will include museums, animal enclosures and other activities suitable for all age groups.
Public Libraries
Library services to the community are provided under the aegis of the Urban Council in the urban areas and the Regional Council in the New Territories.
The Urban Council's public library service expanded rapidly in 1988. Three permanent district libraries were opened in complexes in Po On Road, Shui Wo Street and Quarry Bay to replace one interim district library and two small libraries in rented premises. In addition, the Yau Ma Tei Public Library was re-opened after refurbishment and three new small libraries were opened in Tsz Wan Shan, Kowloon City and Wong Tai Sin, bringing the total number of libraries in the urban areas to 29, including two mobile libraries.
Apart from basic lending services for adults and children, the council's libraries provide newspapers and periodicals, audio-visual materials, students' study rooms as well as a wide range of extension activities and a block loan service to non-profit-making organisations and penal institutions. Comprehensive reference materials, reading machines for the blind and microcomputers are provided in the Kowloon Central Library and the City Hall Public Library.
A new reading programme was launched in July to promote an interest in reading among young readers. A total of 4 500 readers joined the reading programme and read 54 000 books in the first six months.
Some 960 regular and special book exhibitions, covering various aspects of the library stock, were held in the libraries to stimulate reading interest and widen readers' scope of reading. The book exhibitions attracted some 97 000 readers.
The council's libraries also published seven story books for children and one books for adults to provide healthy reading materials and encourage good quality publications.
The 'Best Produced Books in Hong Kong 1986–7' competition was the fifth organised by the council to give recognition to the outstanding achievement of the local publishing and printing industries. During the year, the award winning books, together with other Urban Council publications, were exhibited for the first time at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October. The year also saw the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the popular Chinese Literary Week in August. Some 10 203 participants attended a seminar on the development of Chinese literature in Hong Kong, an exhibition on writers' manuscripts and a 'Meet Your Authors' reception organised during the week.
A collection of commemorative essays by speakers of past Chinese Literary Weeks was also published to mark the occasion.
The book stock of the libraries increased further to 2.2 million, including 2 153 332 books and 42 609 items of audio-visual materials. To keep pace with new development in technology, compact disk - read only memory (CD-ROM) materials were acquired to facilitate the retrieval of information in the reference libraries.
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During the year, the libraries lent out 7.4 million books and 237 979 audio-cassette tapes, handled 164 173 reference enquiries and organised 4 580 extension activities for 1.4 million people. More than 15.5 million books were read in the libraries.