On March 17, with the guidance of Hangzhou Municipal Foreign Affairs Office, Hu Fang, deputy director of Hangzhou Public Library, made an online meeting with Heidelberg City Hall, Germany, and exchanged views on building the friendly cooperative relationship and projects between Hangzhou Public Library and Heidelberg city library. Hangzhou municipal government’s portal site, Hangzhou Municipal Foreign Affairs and Hangzhou Daily reported this meeting.
Du Shigen,deputy director of the Municipal Office of Foreign Affairs
In 2016, Hangzhou and Heidelberg signed a memorandum of friendly exchanges and cooperation. Du Shigen,deputy director of the Municipal Office of Foreign Affairs,said that since the outbreak of COVID-19, two cities have looked after each other and have continued to carry out various forms of communication in the "cloud". A library is a window showcasing city culture. Promoting the good relationship between the libraries of the two cities will further deepen the friendly relationship between Hangzhou and Heidelberg, so as to build a cultural bridge for the citizens of the two cities to understand each other.
Hu Fang, deputy director of Hangzhou Public Library
Hu Fang made a brief introduction of Hangzhou Public Library, reviewed the friendship of exchange, visit and cooperation with German library community in the past ten years, and extended gratitude to Hangzhou
Municipal Foreign Affairs Office for its support of cooperation among international sister cities’ libraries. Hu said, library service has to be changed for the pandemic impacting the pace of normal daily life. Under such circumstance, the cooperation between international sister libraries becomes extremely important.
Christian Scholl, head of the International Department of Heidelberg City Hall, Germany, appreciated the achievements made by Hangzhou Public Library in international communication and cooperation. He was about to take the anniversary celebration of the sister cities as an opportunity to further discuss specific cooperative projects such as book donation, academic communication and the establishment of a cultural corner in libraries respectively.
Till now, Hangzhou Public Library has maintained friendly exchanges with 15 foreign libraries and has signed cooperation agreements with 9 libraries in the United States, Britain, Japan and so on. It has accumulated rich experience in book donation, staff visits, academic communication and culture exchange. In the future, Hangzhou Public Library is willing to work with more international sister libraries, including some in Heidelberg, to explore new ways of communication and cooperation under the new normal of the epidemic, and hopes to deepen the exchanges and friendship between Hangzhou and international sister cities through the cooperation in the field of libraries.