The University of Hong Kong Libraries are planning to digitalize 4,000 rare, precious books and put them on the university's website for free public use in a year's time.

The project covers rare, out-of-copyright books on China and Asia written in English. For example, the Morrison Collection, Hankow Collection and Chater Collection.

This is the first time for the university to embark on such a large-scale digitalization project on rare books. Previously, it has digitized some government publications and newspapers for access by the public.

The project is launched in conjunction with two business partners, who provide the advanced scanning technology.

At a ceremony celebrating the project launch yesterday, Dr Y. C. Wan, librarian of the university's Fung Ping Shan Library, said the main purpose of the project is to share the rare books with the public as well as preserving them, as many of the books are no longer published. The project also facilitates teaching and research.

"We have a very large variety of books, covering foreign languages, history, popular literature, Chinese law, Chinese civilization and even China travel notes by foreigners," said Wan. "The oldest book in our possession was printed in 1819. The condition of most the books, which were printed in the 19th century, is still quite good."

With a total cost of about HK$1.95 million, the project is expected to complete in July 2009.

(HK Edition 10/10/2008 page1)