By Michele Brown
Chen Hong, Director of Circulation at Tsinghua Library and Zhang Huili of the Special Collections Department at Peking University are the fourth pair of librarians from China to participate in the care of circulating collections training program funded by the Luce Foundation. Hong and Huili arrived in Ithaca September 16 and began working with us September 23. This week-end they will return to Beijing.
They began by learning how to determine the grain direction of paper.
Then, they sewed and bound their own blank books.
They learned how to do full and partial repairs, fan glue bindings and constructing phase boxes.
We discussed disaster preparation and salvaged some wet books and documents.
They visited the Mann Library Preservation Department and Special Collections vault, and spoke to Frank Brown about the Mann Library preservation program.
Finally, they learned how to construct exhibit supports.
Many thanks to our translators and all of the people who helped make the program a success.
I wish you offered the same to the small rural libraries and museums in the US.
Between 1990 and 2007 we hosted and trained approximately 30 interns from small institutions in New York State via the New York State technician training program. Unfortunately, New York State has discontinued funding for that program. We have also hosted interns from Tribal Colleges with funding from a different grant. The program for interns from China was funded by the Luce Foundation. We are dependent on funding from outside sources for these programs.