41. The word library originally meant____.

A freedom from ignorance

B collections of books

C means of communication

D storage of knowledge

42. Which of the following statements shows libraries nowadays serve multimedia resource centers?

A People can visit them at their convenient time

B People can learn about different cultures in them.

C They house educational and recreational materials in a variety of forms

D They provide information for professional people in different fields.

43. Including talking books in their collections is a good example of____.

A the expansion of the contents of libraries

B the development of special libraries

C the entertaining function of libraries

D the recording service in libraries

44. In the last paragraph, the word “patrons” probably means____.

A professional people

B academic researchers

C librarians

D readers

45. The information provided in this passage may help us____.

A make better use of the library as a useful service institution

B pay more attention to up-to-date news provided in libraries

C better understand librarians and appreciate their hard work

D save more time for entertainment in library activities

Passage Four

Students who want to enter the University of Montreal’s Athletic Complex need more than just a conventional ID card—their identities must be proved genuine by an electronic hand scanner. In some California housing estates, a key alone is insufficient to get someone in the door; his or her voiceprint must also be verified. And soon customers at some Japanese banks will have to present the faces for scanning before they can enter the building and withdraw their money.

All of these are applications of biometrics, a fast-growing technology that involves the use of physical or biological characteristic to identify individuals. In use for more than a decade at some high security government institutions in the United States and Canada, biometrics is rapidly popping in the everyday world.

Biometric security systems operate by storing a digitized record of some unique human feature. When a user wishes to enter or use the facility, the system scan the person’s corresponding characteristics and attempts to match them against those on record Systems using fingerprints, hands, voices, eyes, and faces are already on the market. Others using typing patterns and even body smells are in various stages of development.

Fingerprints scanners are currently the most widely used type of biometric application, thanks to their growing use over the last 20 years by law enforcement agencies. Sixteen American states now use biometric fingerprint verification systems to check that people claiming welfare payments are genuine. Politicians in Toronto have voted to do the same, with a testing project beginning next year.

Nevertheless, support for biometric is growing in Toronto as it is in many other communities. In an increasingly crowded and complicated world, biometrics may well be a technology whose time has come.