ENG-1993 — Page 417

RECREATION, SPORTS AND THE ARTS

The Ping Shan heritage trail, the first heritage trail in the territory, was opened during the year. Located at Ping Shan in Yuen Long, it is about one kilometre in length. The trail links a number of historical Chinese buildings and monuments within easy walking distance, and provides the public with an opportunity to experience the social and cultural development of the New Territories over the past centuries in a convenient half-day

excursion.

Public Libraries

Urban Council Libraries

The Urban Council Public Libraries continued to increase in number, and in size, during 1993. In May, the third mobile library was put on the road, and the Electric Road Public Library was opened in August. In addition, the first phase of renovation works to expand the City Hall Public Library was finished. When this renovation is completed, in April 1994, the City Hall Public Library will occupy more than eight floors of the High Block.

The Urban Council operates 31 public libraries, including a specialised library on the arts at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Under the current expansion programme, the number of libraries will be increased to 42 in the next few

years.

The Hong Kong Central Library, being planned in the Causeway Bay area, will have a net usable area of about 18 000 square metres and will provide a central reference library for storing all major reference materials of the library system under one roof. Two other libraries, both joint venture projects with the private sector, were also under construction in 1993. They were a district library at Shung Ling Street in Wong Tai Sin and a small library in Tsim Sha Tsui East.

Facilities provided by the libraries included lending services for adults and children, newspapers and periodicals services, audio-visual services, students' study rooms, a wide range of extension activities as well as block loan services to non-profit-making organisa- tions and penal institutions. Reading machines for the blind were also available in the City Hall Public Library and Kowloon Central Library.

A start was made in June on the full-scale implementation of the Library Com- puterisation Project. The system will have English and Chinese capabilities to provide a more efficient service to the public. The first computerised library is expected to come into operation in April 1994. It is planned that the computerisation project will be fully implemented by mid-1995.

The year saw a major enhancement in reference services. The libraries have subscribed to about 100 bibliographical and information databases on Compact Disc - Read Only Memory (CD-ROM). A computer network was installed in 1993 to centralise most of the CD-ROM databases in the City Hall Reference Library and to make information readily available to the Kowloon Central Reference Library, Arts Library and district libraries through dial access. In addition, planning was in hand to introduce on-line search facilities to local and overseas databases to locate up-to-date information for readers in early 1994.

The installation of book detection systems in the council's libraries continued during the year, bringing to 25 the total number of libraries with this equipment. Readers using these libraries are permitted to keep their bags and belongings with them.

In 1993, the library collection increased to 2.8 million items, including 2.7 million books and 161 122 audio-visual items. The council libraries will continue to acquire suitable materials to increase the library stock to 3.4 million items, to reach the target of one item

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