RAS-1981

# 9

# HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT FOR 1981 - 82

For the period 7th November to 18th January the Library was inaccessible to members, owing to renovations to the 15th floor of the Arts Centre. Nevertheless it is good to record an increase in borrowing of books during the year. In order to encourage even more use, a revised edition of the published catalogue of the Library is in active preparation, and will be put on sale in the near future.

Because of the great deal of time required to prepare this catalogue (upwards of 100 man-hours), and because I am also engaged in the indexing of vols. 11-20 of our Journal, the usual routines have fallen behind, and no books have been added to stock since the last report. This is particularly regrettable as we have in fact received rather more gifts than usual, including the following: 12 volumes on Korea (as part of our exchange arrangement with the University of Hong Kong), one from Dr. James Hayes, one from Professor Ho Peng-Yoke, and one from Dr. S. C. Young, founder of Kyung Hee University, Seoul. Several volumes have also been purchased, while our collection of bound volumes of periodicals continues to grow as the result of exchanges for our Journal. Some gaps in the back sets have been filled, mainly by the University Library from its duplicates. The holdings list of periodicals for the new catalogue will contain nine new titles compared with that in the 1978 catalogue supplement; on the other hand, two exchanges have been discontinued.

Excluding those recent additions which have yet to be catalogued, the present stock is

1,203

* including 48 in Chinese

It is hoped that the present shortage of shelf space for our books in the Kotewall Library of the Arts Centre will soon be overcome by additions to the furniture there.

15th March, 1982

H.A. Rydings
Hon. Librarian