University Libraries Welcome Students from Gezhi High School, Shanghai, China

Posted on August 12, 2014 by Janet Clarke

Students from Gezhi High School visited Stony Brook University from August 11 to August 18, 2014. They were working on five research topics ranging from engineering science to social science. A small group of five students were working on a project, a comparative study of user friendly design in Chinese and American university libraries. They toured the Melville Library hosted by Kathy Maxheimer and Hanne Tracy visiting our public service areas, Music Library, Engineering Library, CoLA, Central Reading Room, Circulation, asking lots of questions and making observations along the way. Michael Huang, Health Sciences Librarian, accompanied them on the tour. Shanghai is Michael’s hometown, and this added a personal element to the tour. Michael explained the Faculty Wall of Honor, speaking Mandarin.

Each student was given a bag of “goodies” containing general information about SBU Libraries, some research and instruction material, information explaining our scavenger hunts, the Take a Book/Leave a Book Program along with our “Get Your Read On” frisbee. The students had never seen a frisbee before! We explained that this was a popular campus pastime, and recommended they check out YouTube to learn more about it. After the tour, a smaller group sat with Hanne Tracy to further share ideas on what would make the “Ideal Library.” The time spent with the students and their teachers was fun and interesting for all of us. We wish them good luck, safe travels, and hopefully some of them will return to Stony Brook as students someday!