AN enormous amount of information is processed and then produced in each edition of the South China Morning Post and all of it - cuttings of published articles, photographs, negatives and the like - must be filed.
And it must be done in a manner which ensures it is easily accessible for future reference and possible use.
Checking on what has been reported on before is part of producing a newspaper and, with the complex workings of the Post's various departments, easy access is vitally important to journalists and photographers.
Perhaps the biggest innovation in the library in the past few years has been the introduction of the Basis Plus computer system which has reduced the amount of time it takes to track down any information.
'The system was devised by the librarians with the help of the EDP department,' said librarian Gracia Wong. 'We took the system first used at The Times in London and localised it so it would suit our particular needs.
'Instead of having to look through paper cuttings for articles, which takes a lot of time, you can get the system to track down what is needed by simply keying in subject name, the headline from the story you are looking for, or even a few words from the story.
'The computer then runs through all available information on file about that topic until the exact information required is found.
