The rapid economic growth of Hong Kong since the 1950's resulted a boom in realty market. The number of documents registered in the Land Office jumped from 4,228 of 1946/47 to 170,214 of 1979/80. The tremendous numbers of memorials created a serious storage problem. In the early 1960's, the accommodation requirement was already regarded as "an increasing burden on the tax-payer" (1961/62 Registrar General's Department Annual Report).
The microfilming of Land Office records was conducted intermittently in the mid 1960's and early 1970's. In the mid 1970's the Land Office needed to acquire additional storage space including leased accommodation such as offices in American International Tower and World Trade Centre. To save valuable office accommodation for keeping land documents, a project of microfilming all documents registered in the Land Office started in November 1979. Since 8 June 1981, searches of any document in microfilm form were carried out by way of production of a diazo copy or a hard copy. The project completed on 31 March 1985 and 2,096,156 documents had been microfilmed. With the introduction of Document Imaging System in July 1996, diazo copy and microfilmed hard copy are replaced by computer printed hard copy of imaged document.
The microfilming of Land Office records was conducted intermittently in the mid 1960's and early 1970's. In the mid 1970's the Land Office needed to acquire additional storage space including leased accommodation such as offices in American International Tower and World Trade Centre. To save valuable office accommodation for keeping land documents, a project of microfilming all documents registered in the Land Office started in November 1979. Since 8 June 1981, searches of any document in microfilm form were carried out by way of production of a diazo copy or a hard copy. The project completed on 31 March 1985 and 2,096,156 documents had been microfilmed. With the introduction of Document Imaging System in July 1996, diazo copy and microfilmed hard copy are replaced by computer printed hard copy of imaged document.
