ENG-1998 — Page 443

RECREATION, SPORTS AND THE ARTS

Provisional Urban Council Public Libraries

The library system continues to expand. The new Tsz Wan Shan, public library was opened this year. The Pak Tin library was also completely renovated and expanded. The council now operates 39 libraries in the urban areas, including three mobile libraries. Planning is under way for the provision of three small libraries in Lok Fu, UC Ap Lei Chau Complex and Fu Shan Estate.

Construction of the Hong Kong Central Library is in full swing. When opened in 2000, it will be the largest purpose-built public library in Hong Kong and capable of holding two million items. It will be the principal information and resource centre of the whole library system. New facilities will include a multi-media production studio, a young adults library, a central reference library, more than 500 public access microcomputers and multi-media terminals for information and database searches through the telecommunication network and the Internet.

The second phase of the extension of library opening hours began in February. Lunch breaks were abolished in all small libraries and their closing time extended by half an hour to 7 pm. All static libraries now open on Sundays from 10 am to 5 pm.

The library system registered its one-millionth user in the year. The total number of registered library users now stands at 1.096 million. The number of items borrowed amounted to 18 million in the year.

The library collection continues to grow and now comprises 3.9 million books and 258 628 audio-visual items, including audio-cassettes, gramophone records, audio compact discs, video compact discs, video-cassettes, CD-ROMs and computer programmes. The libraries subscribe to more than 2 540 local and overseas newspapers and periodicals.

Reference services were also well used during the year. Library staff handled more than 46 500 reference enquires, and 1.85 million items of reference materials were consulted in the libraries. The CD-ROM network has been upgraded to provide concurrent access to more than 50 CD-ROM databases in the City Hall Reference Library from all static libraries. The reference libraries have built up 3 597 CD- ROMs, including many multi-media and full-text databases. On-line searches of local and overseas catalogues and commercial databases are available through the Internet. As a depository library for nine international organisations, the City Hall Reference Library receives full sets of publications from the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations, the World Bank, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, the World Trade Organisation, the World Food Programme, the International Labour Organisation, the International Maritime Organisation and the European Union.

Outreach programmes continue to form an integral part of the library services. Awards were presented in the year for creative writing in Chinese and drama criticism in Chinese to arouse interest in literary appreciation.

The findings of the second Writer-in-Residence, Mr Ng Huen-yan, on literary publications of the local literary societies and bodies in the '60s and '70s will be published for sale by the council. In the meantime, a research project for the third Writer-in-Residence programme on poetry publications during 1946-1996 was in

progress.

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