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Andy Ho

A reputed writer has urged Chief Executive-designate Tung Chee-hwa to read more in order to enrich his speeches. Tung Chuen-cheuk, former editor-in-chief of Ming Pao, suggests the future Special Administrative Region leader has been dwarfed by Governor Chris Patten in terms of his prose.

 The Ming Pao columnist holds that Mr Tung's recent public addresses have appeared to be dry and shallow and his criticism has been amplified by other columnists.

 Reassuring and businesslike they may be, but the words of the SAR head can hardly be described as lively and witty.

  The daily working schedule of Mr Tung, who celebrates his 60th birthday in 16 days, has been widely publicised as extending from 7am to 11pm, so maybe he has too little time to heed the advice of his namesake.

 This episode prompted me to pay a rare visit to a public library last week, lest I be trapped in a similar embarrassing situation of being reminded how limited my breadth of knowledge was when I turn 60.

 The biggest and nearest library to me is the one in Sha Tin run by the Regional Council.

 It now runs 26 libraries, with a combined stock of 2.3 million books and about 150,000 audiovisual titles.

 A book about the origin of the universe, I thought, might be a reasonable starting point. Carl Sagan's Cosmos, which managed to stay on The New York Times bestseller list for 70 weeks, was the first title that came to mind. First published in 1980, it has been hailed as the best-selling science book of the century.

 There has been a revival of interest in the works of the famous astronomer and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, following his death late last year.

 After a five-minute queue, I found myself in front of a computer trying to find where the book was kept. The reply from the machine read: 'Sorry, there are no copies available for your search location. Press enter to see copies at other locations.' I followed the instruction only to find the same message flashing on the monitor. Then I tried to find the television documentary - on which the book was based - in the audiovisual unit.

 Millions all over the world have seen the programme. The librarians, apparently, have never heard of it.

 I then tried to track down a popular novel, also on space exploration - Arthur C Clarke's 3001: The Final Odyssey. His latest and probably last book was fighting it out with John Grisham's The Partner on the bestseller chart.

 Clarke's work was first released two months ago. I had to accept that it would take much longer than two months for our library bureaucracy to acquire a new book, no matter how successful or popular it might be.

Since I was looking for titles on space, I decided to try my luck in another area which has generated considerable public and scientific interest of late.

 I was reminded of The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet, by Secretary for Housing Dominic Wong Shing-wah who aroused my curiosity with his consultative paper on a long-term housing strategy to ease Hong Kong's growing demands for living space.

 Mr Wong's document offered little insight into how the territory's chronic housing problems could be solved but in their book about the red planet Robert Zubrin and Richard Wagner seem to have pointed to more realistic solutions.

 The writers explain how humans can colonise Mars on a sensible, bare-bones budget of between US$20 billion (about HK$154 billion) and US$30 billion.

 This imaginative blueprint has attracted considerable media and academic attention because of the United States' renewed mission to explore the planet and its moons.

 The Case for Mars seems to offer more assurances than Mr Wong's long-range measures to provide more flats for our swelling population. There are 49 titles on Mars on the shelves. But the one in question has yet to be acquired, even though it was first published in November last year.

 At that point I had to give up because I had already exhausted my limited knowledge of popular books on space exploration. I was instead curious as to why the Regional Council had apparently failed to keep a decent stock of well-known titles.

 The next logical step was to check the Regional Council's deliberations on library services. I guessed the council must have set up a select committee on the matter but when I asked the reference counter for a copy of the minutes, the reply was again in the negative.

 Not only does the library not keep records of the Regional Council's sub-committees, but even the minutes of its plenary open sessions are unavailable.

 I asked where I could find a copy and was instructed to forward my inquiry to the office of the Regional Council. The librarian then added helpfully that they did keep a set of the Urban Council's minutes instead.

 That might have been be a consolation prize. But my last hope was dashed when she added the latest records were 18 months old.

 Last year the Regional Council had a total of $5.5 billion at its disposal: a seven-day-a-week library service, a better stock of books and a set of its own records shouldn't be unreasonable demands.



A word in Mr Tung's ear