International Relations Round Table (IRRT) Hosts Visiting Librarians from Fujian Province in China
Last month, OLA’s International Relations Round Table (IRRT) was able to welcome the delegation of visiting librarians from the Fujian Province in China, thanks to funding support from Portland State University (PSU) Office of Global Engagement & Innovation and the Horner Exchange. This year’s visitors included Weiwei Wu, Xiyang Lin, Zhaohui Huang and Feng Yu.
These four librarians were able to travel from Fujian and arrived in Portland on Sunday, May 12, and spent the next two weeks traveling across the Willamette Valley. While in Oregon, they were able to visit libraries, gardens, parks, schools and we even got them to a wine tasting!
In addition to stops at PSU and the Mandarin language students at Lincoln High School, they toured the Multnomah County Central Library (MCL) and their new Operations Center, Hillsboro Public Library, the Vancouver and Vancouver Mall Community Libraries just across the river in Washington. Also, they visited the new University of Oregon campus library in NE Portland which houses a MCL pop-up. They spent the weekend touring the Oregon Historical Society, the Saturday Market, Powell’s City of Books, and Mt. Angel Library. While they were in Salem, they did get a tour of the State Library, the State Archives, and the Chemeketa Community College Eola-Northwest Wine Studies Center. A whirlwind two days at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University rounded out their trip, before returning to Portland for a farewell banquet and flight back to Fujian.
Our guests were also able to share presentations about their own work in China during their stay. It was very interesting to see how similar our libraries, and concerns over student support, are to each other at the core. And, as librarians, they loved all the bookstores!
While our guests brought a handy translation device, we relied on the donated time of very skilled translators included Amy Lee, Jian Wang, Kenny Chen, Ingrid Topp-Johnson, Angela Lee, Xiaotong Wang, Liu-Qin Yang and Tracy (Chenhua) Wang.
Transportation was a huge lift here, and part of why the visits are limited to the Willamette Valley. While most of their luggage stayed in Portland, transporting 5-6 people at a time takes a big vehicle (or two!). Thanks to everyone who pitched in to get our guests to where they needed to be! Both the State Library and Oregon State University helped with vehicle rentals and lodging during the exchange too.
As you can see, there was an immense amount of planning that went into making this trip a success for our guests. Nancy Hoover served as the main logistics coordinator, keeping this team on task and helping select gifts for our visitors. The IRRT team includes Veronica Vichit-Vadakan, Linda Campillo, Le Yang, Richard Sapon-White, Bruce Flath, Brandon Barnett, Ellie Avis, Hui Zhang, Michael Boock, Amy Lee, April Younglove, Lara Phillips, and Jian Wang.
A special note of thanks for Jian Wang, who worked tirelessly in advance for months to ensure this visit happened; she also served as translator and cultural educator at so many points along the way. She’ll be key for making sure the group of Oregonians visiting Fujian this fall have everything we need! I’m thrilled to have been invited to join Jennifer Cox, Haley Lagasse, and Ingrid Topp-Johnson on this journey.
– Wendy Cornelisen, State Librarian
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