Vice-Chancellor's Report 1990-93

period for our Buildings Office, and the fruits of their labour are recorded in detail in appendix 4 of this report. The achievements of our building programme in the last three years were due in no small measure to the assistance o f the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee, who sped up their approval procedure for various building projects to allow us to tackle our space needs more efficiently. Major buildings completed during this period include two blocks of guesthouses, the Chan Kwan-tung Inter-university Hall and the Chiangs Building, which together provide an additional 95 guestrooms and related facilities, representing significant improvements to the University Guesthouse System designed to accommodate overseas visitors and exchange scholars. A student hostel with 300 places and a 500-seat lecture theatre were built on the campus of Shaw College, our fledgling fourth constituent college. Two new composite academic buildings, the Leung Kau K u i Building and the Hui Yeung Shing Building, have provided upgraded facilities and more space for the Faculty of Business Administration, the departments of music, religion, psychology, and Japanese studies, and The Chinese University Press. Extensive renovations o f existing buildings have done the same for the departments of anthropology, translation, fine arts, and journalism and communication. And of course the new T in Ka Ping Building has provided high-quality accommodation for the library extension, the Universities Service Centre, the Hong Kong-America Center, and the Hong Kong Institute ofAsia-Pacific Studies. Extended sports facilities in the form of squash courts, f l ood l i gh t i ng and air- conditioning for the University gymnasium and stadium have benefited a large number of staff and student users. We eagerly look forward to the completion of our 10-storey Ho Sin-hang Engineering Building, scheduled for use this autumn, which w i ll house our new Faculty of Engineering and its four academic departments. In order to help oversee the above developments and help plan for the future, a Working Group on Campus Master Development Plan was appointed in late 1990 to draw up guidelines for the physical planning of the campus as a whole. The Enhanced Library System With rapidly growing collections and the growing number of library users, the facilities of the University Library System were stretched to the foil by 1990. The completion of the library extension in the Tin Ka Ping building has helped to relieve the congestion. The University Library obtains additional floor space of 1,800 square metres to house its current journals, bound journals, and reserve books, accommodate 200 more seats for readers, and provide additional office space for many of its departments. Facilities in the library have also been upgraded. Local Area Networks have been set up at the University Library and its four branch libraries, all o f which are also connected to the Campus Backbone Ne t wo r k. W i th the installation of an integrated library system DOBIS/E and an I BM ES9000 system, on-line 31