1988 — Page 29

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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

citizens. Can consideration be given to sending the books to home for the elderly or households. Indeed, a mobile library van will be operational soon. But in view of our aging population, is a mobile library van considered adequate to serve the community and is it targeted for the senior citizens or the traditional mobile library services for the public at large? It seems that this has not been clearly spelt out in the reply. Secondly, regarding ...

CHAIRMAN (in English): Just give a chance for Mr. CHAN to respond. I have forgotten what you said. You have already asked three supplementaries.

MRS. CHOW CHEUNG WAI-PING (in English): I will ask the second supplementary question later.

CHAIRMAN (in English): You actually have got two or three supplementaries. That is a speech actually.

MR. JOSEPH Y. S. CHAN (in English): The library materials such as audio-visual tapes and reading materials are suitable for adult and senior citizens. They are all catered for the general public at large. As far as the visual ability of the senior citizen is concerned, the health of our senior citizens seems to be very good. The popularity of a Chinese material exercise called sixth practice has enabled the physical and visual ability of the senior citizens to maintain satisfactorily. Up to now, I cannot see there is a special need to enlarge the prints and characters of the books especially for the elderly. No special request in this regard has been made so far. If there is such a request, we will consider making necessary adjustment. As regards the less mobile sector of the community, I am afraid that we cannot send books directly to their individual household. However, in many community centres, the Social Welfare Department has done a very good job with regard to the provision of library service for the senior citizens. The Urban Council just provides a general service for the community at large and not a social welfare service. If there is a genuine need for this, we will review the situation further.

MRS. CHOW CHEUNG WAI-PING (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, to follow up on the facilities for the elderly, I sincerely hope that our Council should consider that the services provided to the elderly should not be regarded as a kind of social welfare. We take care of the general need of a community and cope with the education system e.g. we have nine-year or even eleven-year free compulsory education. Under the circumstance, the Council should seriously consider our library service as we did in the past or we should consider taking a more active approach to serve various different age groups. So I hope that consideration can be given to this. I do not agree that elderly people read different categories of books from ours. They do not just read martial art fictions, sometimes they read different kinds of books. So this is a supplementary remark.

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

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MR. JOSEPH Y. S. CHAN (in Cantonese): Mrs. CHOW has made a good suggestion, the Libraries Select Committee will consider this. I believe what she said should be regarded as a supplementary question.

MRS. CHOW CHEUNG WAI-PING (in Cantonese): Regarding core families, I would like to follow up.

CHAIRMAN (in English): You are still on the subject?

MRS. CHOW CHEUNG WAI-PING (in English): Yes, on this subject.

CHAIRMAN (in English): Please remember a supplementary is a supplementary question, it is not an opportunity to make a speech. You have already made two speeches making use of the device of a supplementary question. So please make the supplementary question and keep it short and to the point.

MRS. CHOW CHEUNG WAI-PING (in English): Mr. Chairman, the main trouble is my question has not been answered and therefore I suppose I have to make clear my question.

CHAIRMAN (in English): Well, it was difficult to discern any question in the last speech you made.

MRS. CHOW CHEUNG WAI-PING (in English): My second supplementary question is about nuclear family. One of the most important members is the housewife and whether we should serve them in this library section is another question I feel concerned. I wonder if we realise women of 25 have most of them not received nine-year compulsory education and therefore I wonder if the Council's library service would extend to this type of people who are not so educated as this decade young women?

MR. JOSEPH Y. S. CHAN (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, if my understanding serves me correct, well, core family means smaller family. If we go to the libraries, we can observe that mothers taking along young children to make use of the library facilities and they are there also help the children to make use of the facilities. Inside the libraries, there are also books and activities provided to mothers and housewives. In my reply, I gave detailed information in this regard. As regards to those who have not received education, what can we do to help them or to offer them more facilities? Our libraries do not provide the service of teaching them to be literate. What is provided now is services for the literate people so that they can make use of library facilities. For the illiterates, they can use music tapes or video tapes.

(The Chairman vacated the chair and handed over to VCUC at 4.00 p.m.)

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