Many conference attendees stopped by the poster and talked to Dr. Xue-Ming Bao, Chinese Corner Contact and Electronic Resources Librarian. They said that it was a nice idea and a good thing to do. Seton Hall University Library established a “Chinese Corner” in 2014, which has a collection of 300 donated books, CDs and DVDs from China Hanban, the National Office of Teaching Chinese Language. The library hired four graduate students of Asian Studies on the Chinese language teaching track as project assistants using the Chinese Corner funding during Spring and Fall semesters between 2014 and 2016. They visited Chinese language classes and reached out to American students learning Chinese at basic, intermediate, and advanced levels. They also provided one-on-one tutoring at the convenience of the students each week.
Fifty Library Chinese Corners in 35 countries were funded by China Hanban and coordinated by China Educational Publications Import and Export Corporation Ltd (CEPIEC) by the end of July 2014. Seton Hall University Library’s Chinese Corner was mentioned as one of the three successful examples in a report by Xinhua News, China’s Global News Media, on November 3, 2015. It’s an honor for the library to receive the 2nd round funding for Chinese Corner among the 10 libraries in July 2016. It means that the library can continue to recruit more graduate students as project assistants to reach out to Chinese language classes on campus in future semesters.
