Chiayi Libraries Join the Cyber Age

The Chiayi County Cultural Affairs Bureau and ten county village and township libraries were officially connected online from December 4, 2002, bringing them into the e-generation. Readers can now search from among the some 300,000 publications in the collections of the participating libraries and check out any of these titles with a single library card. In order to encourage county residents to use the library resources, the bureau began offering online services in 1999. Its computer system was completed in 2002 and partner libraries in Putzu and nine other villages and towns were connected to the network thereafter. Chiayi County Magistrate Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) said that the network would allow readers to conveniently and quickly find reading material. The Chiayi County Cultural Affairs Bureau has published a handbook with details on using the system.