A ceremony launching the first batch of libraries for foreign scholars at Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province was held in the Higher Engineering Education Museum, iHarbour , Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU), on April 1.

The Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (MoST) and the Department of Science and Technology of Shaanxi Province donated books to the libraries at the ceremony.

Xi Guang, vice president of XJTU, said that the establishment of the library for foreign experts at XJTU will introduce them to the "Chinese path, Chinese experience and Chinese wisdom", and share with them the achievements of China's reform and opening-up process.

The university will give foreign experts access to information about China and Chinese culture, providing them with high-standard services in a good reading environment, Xi added.

Dieter Hienz Hermann Hoffmann, a 2019 Chinese Government Friendship Award winner and professor of the School of Physics at XJTU, gave a speech on behalf of foreign experts at the ceremony, expressing his gratitude for the construction of the library, and hoping that it might bring foreign experts in Shaanxi Province together in a place where they can discuss and exchange ideas in various professional fields.

“I look forward to having more interesting and exciting exchanges with international colleagues and Chinese experts at the library”, Hoffmann said.

The Foreign Experts Library program has been launched by MoST's Foreign Talent Research Center, and aims to provide a convenient reading environment for foreign experts and international students in China.

As one of the first libraries for foreign experts to be set up in Shaanxi Province, the one at XJTU is located in the iHarbour reading center, and provides books in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, and Russian.