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Libraries in Oregon’s sister province of Fujian, China, will be receiving 1,000 boxes of surplus library books, a gift from Oregon libraries, organizations and individuals. Since the first of the year the State Library has worked with the International Relations Round Table of the Oregon Library Association to collect surplus books that have been discarded from Oregon library collections.
On October 15th, beginning at noon, 15 members of the Oregon National Guard will assist with the project by taking the books from the basement of the State Library and loading them into a 40 foot ocean-going container that will be shipped to Xiamen in Fujian province in the next few weeks.
The motivation for the project came from the director of the Xiamen University Library, Dehong Xiao, who visited Oregon in the fall of 2008 and met with State Librarian Jim Scheppke and other Oregon librarians. He had discussed the possibility of a book donation project with some Oregon librarians who had visited Fujian in 2007 and 2008. He was aware of a similar project that sent books from Oregon libraries to China in 1993 . In his meetings in Oregon in 2008, he stressed the continuing shortage of English-language books in libraries in Fujian. There are many English-language learners in China and libraries have a hard time keeping enough English-language books on their shelves. University libraries are finding that many English-language books they would like to have for their research collections are out-of-print and unavailable for purchase.
When Xiao returned to Fujian from his trip to Oregon he managed to obtain the permission from the State Ministry of China for Xiamen University to be a receiving station for donated books from overseas sources. He agreed to pay for all shipping expenses, if Oregon libraries would agree to donate the surplus books. He also agreed that his library would distribute the books to libraries throughout Fujian.
Because of a shortage of shelf space in many Oregon libraries, librarians are constantly weeding seldom-use titles from library shelves. Libraries also receive many donations of books from library users. These books are often sold at book sales by Friends of the Library groups, but often there are many more books than can be sold. Early this year the State Library and the Oregon Library Association asked all Oregon libraries to designate some of these surplus books to go to libraries in our sister province. “The response from Oregon libraries was tremendous,” said State Librarian Jim Scheppke. “We had many small libraries donate a box or two. Larger libraries like Deschutes Public Library and Portland State University Libraries donated many boxes to the effort.”
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