The Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) has failed to properly carry out processing tasks for its purchased books – such as their registration in its library catalogue system, sorting and cataloguing – so that a large number of books are still not on the bookshelves in its libraries for residents to use despite being purchased many years ago, the Commission of Audit (CA) said in a hard-hitting report yesterday.
The report described the bureau’s library management as “chaotic”.
The commission also disclosed in the report the “unbelievably appalling” hygiene conditions in the bureau’s two book warehouses in industrial buildings. The report says that the “appalling” hygiene remained unchanged several months after audit officials had discovered the problem during their first inspections.
This photo taken from the audit report released yesterday and taken in June last year shows rodent droppings scattered on books in the Cultural Affairs Bureau’s (IC) central book warehouse.
This photo taken from the audit report released yesterday and taken in June last year shows a dead cockroach next to bookshelves in the bureau’s central book warehouse in Patane district.
