ENG-1966 — Page 305

RECREATION

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GOVERNMENT COLLECTIONS

The government collections of historical pictures consist of the Ho-tung Collection, the Chater Collection, and the Law and Sayer Collection. These together contain more than 700 items including paintings, prints, engravings and photographs. They form a unique pictorial record of early Sino-British contacts in the 18th- and early 19th-Centuries as well as providing interesting illustrations of life in Hong Kong, Macau and other cities on the China coast in those days. The limited space in the City Hall Art Gallery does not allow a permanent display of these collections, but exhibitions under different titles and subjects are arranged from time to time. This year, all the available pictures in the Chater Collection were exhibited for the first time since 1951.

The City Hall Museum's Collection of Chinese ceramics has been constantly added to during the year, mainly with Chinese export porcelain of the 15th- and 16th-Centuries. The archaeological col- lections, including the Maglioni Collection, the University Team Collection and the collection recently formed by the City Hall Museum, have not been exhibited this year, but a small travelling exhibition of representative types was assembled for use by various cultural societies.

LIBRARIES

The Urban Council public libraries, with headquarters at the City Hall, now possess a collection of more than 222,000 items. The City Hall Library has more than 126,000 books, two-thirds of them Chinese, in its lending departments, including 26,000 for children. The reference department has 41,000 volumes together with the nuclei of map and picture collections. The City Hall Library also houses the Kotewall Collection, a gift to the government consisting of 14,903 volumes, and the Hok Hoi Library of 34,571 volumes on permanent loan to the government. The Urban Council Public Library, Kowloon, has a stock of more than 45,000 volumes, two-thirds of them Chinese, providing lending, junior and reference services.

During 1966 over 749,500 books were issued on loan to members of the public by the Urban Council public libraries. A new library is planned, situated at the Wah Fu estate near Pok Fu Lam, which