ENG-1996 — Page 461

RECREATION, SPORTS AND THE ARTS

An English version of the same TV programme was also produced and screened from March to June.

Funding support was given to reprint more copies of Historic Hong Kong leaflet for distribution at both local and overseas outlets of the Hong Kong Tourist Association.

Urban Council Public Libraries

The year witnessed a significant step forward for the library expansion programme. Five new libraries, Tsim Sha Tsui, Un Chau Street, Hung Hom, Smithfield and Wong Nai Chung, were opened. Two more libraries, the Yiu Tung Library and the San Po Kong Library, were preparing to open in early 1997. The council now operates 36 libraries in the urban areas.

After an open public seminar held in May to collect public views on the services and facilities of the Hong Kong Central Library, the construction of the Central Library started in August. When completed in mid-1999, it will be the largest purpose-built public library in the territory, able to hold two million items of library materials. It will be the main library of the council's public library system with a central reference library and more than 400 public access terminals and microcomputers for searching local and overseas catalogues, multi-media programmes and online databases through the Internet.

The year also saw the formulation of a Five-Year Plan on the council's library services, which sets the direction of the council's library services for the period 1997-98 to 2002-03. The plan was prepared based on the findings of a comprehensive review, as well as feedback from a public opinion survey. It shows the council's commitment to further improve its public library services to the public to meet their educational, informational, cultural and recreational needs. The plan covers, inter alia, the extension of the library opening hours, the increase in the target provision of library materials from one item per capita to two items per capita, as well as adjusting the planning standard for district libraries from one library for every 200 000 people to one for every 100 000 people. Two public forums on the Five-year Plan were conducted by the Urban Council.

Library use continued to rise during the year after more libraries opened and the borrowing limit was raised from three to five items per reader. In all, 13.81 million items were borrowed in the year, and 26.77 million books were read in the libraries. The library collection also continued to grow and the system now houses a total of 3.3 million books and 212 000 audio visual items, including audio-cassettes, gramophone records, audio compact discs, video compact discs, video-cassettes, CD- ROMs, Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-I) and computer programmes. The libraries also subscribed to more than 5 750 titles of local and overseas newspapers and periodicals.

The library computerisation system began full operation in March 1995 and now supports more than 400 terminals. Computerisation has brought about better services to the public. Readers can return their borrowed items to any Urban Council libraries. They can also borrow books in the Urban Council libraries with library cards issued by the Regional Council libraries. Plans are in hand to enhance the system in the coming years by introducing public access to the libraries' on-line catalogue through the Internet, renewal of borrowed library materials by telephone, and self-charging terminals.

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