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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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that the Committee has placed great emphasis on the improvement of the hardware aspect of library services like expanding the computer system; increasing the library system's collection and establishing district libraries.
The Committee is currently conducting a review on library services and will draft a Five-year Plan of library services in due course to work out the direction and strategy of future development. In drawing up the plan, a series of public consultation will be conducted. I believe that this kind of large-scale public consultation could be regarded as unprecedented and unimaginable when the Urban Council had not yet abolished the appointment system. Now the fully-elected Urban Council is more ready to hear public opinions and will formulate policies on library services which are more in accord with public demands.
Mr. Chairman, as I have just mentioned, the Libraries Select Committee mainly emphasized the improvement of the hardware aspect of library services and there was a lack of supporting software in the past. The Democratic Party therefore holds that, apart from laying down concrete measures to implement the Central Library Project and to provide additional libraries in districts with distinctive community features, the Libraries Select Committee should conduct a comprehensive review on the library opening hours, better use of the information technology system, policy on the loan of books and audio-visual materials, book acquisition policy and professional staff training etc. in preparing the 5-year plan for future library services.
The Democratic Party will work towards the 'democratization' of the library service system which means the establishment of a public consultation system for extensive collection of public views on library services. The party will propose the formation of a 'Readers Liaison Group' and a 'Professional Advisory Panel on Library Services'.
In view of repeated public complaints about the opening hours of libraries, the Democratic Party considers that immediate improvement should be made by the Council and the following motion will shortly be raised at Council meeting—To resolve that the Urban Council should extend the library opening hours as soon as possible and set up a readers liaison group and a professional advisory panel on library services to enhance library services'.
On the other hand, promotion of literature is another important task of the Libraries Select Committee. However, it is often mistaken as part of the library services or merely the supplementary work of the Committee.
The Democratic Party is of the opinion that the Libraries Select Committee should regard the promotion of literature as one of its top priorities, and efforts to promote literature should concentrate on 3 areas, namely cultivation of reading habit, promotion of literary creation and encouragement of literary research and criticism.
Although activities such as the Reading Programme and the newly-introduced Writer-in-Residence Programme have been organized by the Libraries Select
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