Published by: World Tibet Network News, Tuesday, July 9th 1996

BEIJING (July 9) XINHUA - Some 500 Chinese publishing houses have donated 390,000 books, worth four million yuan, to the first public library in the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

This brings the number of books there to 590,000, of which 100,000 are Tibetan editions, according to "Press and Publication News".

With local government support, the Tibetan Library opened on June 20 in Lhasa, the region's capital, putting an end to the lack of a public library in the autonomous region.

The library includes two rooms of stacks, a bookstore, a lounge, and eight reading rooms with 300 seats.

Shi Jingyi, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and president of a Hong Kong book company, contributed a total of 8,400 books to the library.

One Japanese expert on Chinese called on the press and publishers in Japan twice to get them to donate more than 800 Japanese books.