Media

HKU Libraries to launch "Rare Book Digitisation Project" and "RFID Collection Management & Circulation System"

06 Oct 2008

Four thousand precious collections of rare and out-of-copyright books, specifically on China and Asia, in The University of Hong Kong Libraries (HKUL) will be digitised. The newly launched digitisation project will make these rare books accessible on the Internet and thus greatly facilitate academic research; while the printed originals can be better preserved.

HKUL is pleased to announce launching of its "Rare Book Digitisation Project" and "RFID Collection Management & Circulation System".

Members of the media are cordially invited to cover the ceremony, the details are:-

Date: October 9, 2008 (Thursday)
Time: 2:30 pm
Venue: Special Collections, 1/F, Main Library, HKU

• Professor Richard Wong, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of HKU, will officiate at the ceremony and give opening remarks. 
• Dr Tony Ferguson (Librarian, HKU) and Dr Y.C. Wan (Fung Ping Shan Librarian, HKU) will brief the media of the systems.

The Digitisation Project is to create e-book equivalents for selected Asian Studies western rare books from the HKUL collections. A Kirtas APT BookScan 2400 scanner has been deployed in scanning. Its automatic page-turning robot and two high-resolution cameras provide an efficient, gentle and high-quality digitising solution to the library, which is the home to a precious collection of rare and out-of-copyright books, dealing specifically with China and more generally with Asia. Digital counterparts of these rare books can be accessed on the Internet and searched by keywords, making them highly desirable for research work and preserving the printed originals.

The RFID Project has brought significant improvement to the collection management and circulation system of HKUL. A total of one million books and bound journals have been in the Main Library RFID tagged over the past five months. This has allowed checking in/out multiple items at the same time, facilitated the use of self-service stations and made high speed stock checking a reality. Library staff can also be relieved of repetitive tasks allowing more time to spend with library users. The HKUL Main Library project is so far the largest library RFID project in Hong Kong.

For media enquiries, please contact Ms Carmen Tsang, The University of Hong Kong Libraries (Tel.: 2859-2211 / 9303-7937 / E-mail: yytsang@hku.hk).