Our first visit was to the Information Services Department of Sing Tao Media Holdings Limited. Situated about ten minutes away from the Kowloon Bay MTR station, the Sing Tao Building with its big red logo could be spotted from a fair distance away. Ms Estella Liang, Librarian, gave us a very clear introduction to the history and services of the Department, which comprises the former Sing Tao Daily Main Library, Sing Tao Daily Business Library, Hong Kong iMail/Hong Kong Standard Library and the Sing Tao EDP Team. All the units moved under one roof in September 2001. Now located at the heart of the Sing Tao Building on the 4th floor, the Department houses the historical archives of the Group with materials dating back to 1935. It provides four major services mainly to editorial staff of the Group, and to a lesser degree the public:
1. News research support, e.g. maintenance of photograph archives and news clippings files and conduct company search, land search etc.;Ms Liang then took us on a tour of the Library and showed us the various treasures kept by the Library over decades.
2. Acquisition of news contents/services for publication and reference;
3. Compilation of charts and tables for daily newspaper publication. Information processed includes horse racing results, stock listings, financial indices, property transaction records, shipping schedules, weather data etc.; and
4. Handling applications for copyright permission.
Like other media libraries, its treasures lie not in the few rows of reference books or magazines, but in the hundreds of thousands of photographs and newspaper clippings in its archives.
The photograph archive was started in 1964 and envelopes of photographs are filed under more than 2,000 subject/names indexes in both English and Chinese. Chinese names are filed according to a very unique system: Chinese cable codes (¹q½X). Ms Liang told us that she used to have several staff who, with their awesome experience and memory, were virtually "walking search engines" of those Chinese cable codes before their retirement. We found it very interesting pulling out cabinets trying to find photographs of our favourite movie stars or those of people currently in hot news.
We also saw other treasures like newspaper clippings, microfilm and microfiche of newspapers. Ms Liang next gave us a demonstration of a very useful tool: the Sing Tao Electronic Photo System. The system provides wire photos from six news agencies, pictures for publication on the next day, photographs taken by Sing Tao photographers and photo archives. All the photos are carefully catalogued to make them easily retrievable. When we tried out the databases, we were quite amazed by the ease and speed of retrieval. After seeing the photo archives and the electronic photo system, we then understood how people could dig out "archive photographs" to complement news stories.
In order to keep track of the information resources owned by the Group, the Department is compiling a web-based library resource catalogue through which staff members can check whether particular news clipping files, photos or reference books are available. The visit has certainly widened our knowledge of the services of a newspaper library.
We then made our long way to Tsuen Wan for the next library on our itinerary:
the Hong Kong Cable TV Libraries.
On the ground floor of the HK Cable TV Building, through a strikingly
lit, glass-floored "tunnel", we were led into a Conference Room where we
were greeted by Mrs Edith Lam, News Library Manager, who introduced the
rundown of the library tour to us. There, we were happy to
learn that our visit included not only the News and Non-news Libraries,
but also the state-of-the-art, $150 million Digital News Centre which was
only launched last April.
Mr William Fung, Assistant Controller-News and Information, then led us on a tour of the Digital News Centre, the first fully digitized news production facility in Hong Kong. He explained to us that going digital would allow greater flexibility and enhance quality output of news programmes. Digital copying will replace videotapes which wear out easily after repeated use in traditional newsrooms. It also allows easy and fast manoeuving of news items during broadcasting and allows multiple access to clips at the same time. No sooner had we learned of this great manoeuvring capability than we saw a live "demonstration" of it. Just a few minutes before noon, we were led into the control room next to the studio to see a live news broadcast. The wall in front of us was equipped with the latest broadcasting equipment, one of which showed that a reporter was standing by in Beijing to do a live report on the 16th CPC National Congress, which was to be the headline of the news broadcast. Suddenly, just 15 seconds before the broadcast went on air, all signals from Beijing were lost. Did anyone panic? Did people run around shouting frantically to get tapes changed for a substitute headline? We were told that that sort of commotion could have been what we had witnessed if the news production facilities have not been switched to digital. In fact, within a fraction of a second, the controller just changed the sequence of the news stories in the computerized programme without batting an eyelid. All the pertinent script on the autocue, video clips, graphics, etc. were automatically moved in the right place. A few minutes later, when signals from Beijing resumed, the live report was inserted into the broadcast seamlessly. No audience in front of the TV would have sensed if anything had gone wrong. I was certain that this "demonstration" was unplanned and that we were just lucky to witness a wonderful application of the digital world. Mr. Fung also showed us the ENPS news editing system, which categorizes news clips and file them into a server for retrieval. We also visited the Lines Room where the digitization of news production begins. As Mr. Fung is a seasoned and experienced expert in news broadcasting and production, he has given us a very interesting and knowledgeable introduction to news production, not to mention the many funny and exciting anecdotes he related to us.
Mrs Edith Lam then took over and showed us around the News Library, the Non-news Library and the Music Library. In the News Library, their main holdings include some reference books, journals, government publications, newspapers and clippings but, as expected, their most valuable treasure is the archive of daily raw news footages taken by cameramen in Hong Kong, China and overseas, edited and broadcasted news clips and the taped news broadcasts of the two news channels, videotapes of news programmes from Reuters, Reuters Asia, APTV, CCTV, etc., and news and public affairs programmes produced by HK Cable TV. The colour-coded videotapes are stored in an environmentally controlled room. Library staff's major daily task is to catalogue raw footages of all news materials as cataloging is critical for successful retrieval of these videos. We were split into four groups to see a demonstration on how the clips were catalogued and retrieved. Their library staff work according to a tight schedule and have to catalogue about 80-100 news clips daily. The clips and news stories can then be retrieved by various access points like date, reporter, description, keywords, etc. Their ongoing project is to digitize all news programmes which were still recorded on videotapes and store them in a system which can hold 3,000 hours of recording.
As we made our way to the next stops, we walked past some open studios which were located right next to offices without any partition in between. They are quite different from the traditional, soundproofed studios of other television stations. We also took a ride on the largest elevator, nicknamed "Dai Fei" (¤j¸), that I have ever been on ¡V it can easily take about 40 persons with room to spare. Ms Yanty So and Mr Kenneth Cheng then introduced to us the Non-news Library which holds more than 240,000 tapes, scripts, and photographs. We saw a demonstration on how songs or music were catalogued to make them retrievable by type of music, mood, instrument, tempo, etc. In their EFP catalogue, one can also search for location shots by keywords. At the end of the visit, Mrs Lam confessed to us that our visit was their first ever conducted library tour. We however felt that the whole visit was professionally done with thorough preparation and interesting and knowledgeable explanations and demonstrations. As is customary, our visit concluded with an enjoyable and unbelievably good value lunch with some of the News Library staff at their staff canteen.
I found the visits to the two media libraries a real eye-opener. Not only did we learn about the treasures and services of such special libraries, we also learned something about news production, especially for the television medium. Media libraries are really very specialized libraries serving staff 24 hours a day to support the very tight news production schedules of news production staff. Their treasures, mainly photographs and video clips, are intrinsically difficult to search and retrieve. We now understand that meticulous cataloguing and a good retrieval system is key to successful retrieval of the "archive photographs and footages" that we see everyday. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Ms Estella Liang and her staff at Sing Tao and to Mr William Fung, Mrs Edith Lam, Ms Yanty So and Mr Kenneth Cheng and their staff at HK Cable TV for such an enjoyable and fruitful visit.
Lucinda Wong
University of Hong Kong Libraries