The Leisure & Cultural Services Department's Hong Kong Public Libraries (HKPL) today launched a range of activities to tie in with World Book Day on April 23.

With this year's theme of exploring the new frontiers of reading, the activities will help readers broaden and deepen the scope of their reading.

Among the activities, writers will exchange with librarians the benefits of extensive reading and promote quality books of different subjects from the Librarians' Choice in the Interaction with Authors@LIBRARY video programme.

They will also share with readers the Hong Kong Central Library's services and its vast collections, as well as a series of celebration activities for its 20th anniversary.

Additionally, the HKPL has rolled out a webpage on quality reading culture and roving exhibitions from this month to further promote extensive reading in the community.

The webpage, to be updated quarterly, introduces books according to different subjects, with Librarians' Choice introducing good reads and Readers' Pick providing popular books of readers. Roving exhibitions introducing good books will also be held at select public libraries.

Moreover, videos on Fun Reading at Hong Kong Historic Buildings will be uploaded to the department's Edutainment Channel from April 23.

The video series will lead parents and children to visit revitalised historic buildings so that they can appreciate the features of these buildings while listening to selected thematic stories.

For the annual 4.23 World Book Day Creative Competition, over 1,100 entries from more than 210 schools were received this year. Winning entries were selected from each category and the results are available online.

Visit the Reading is Joyful thematic website for the activities' details.