It was a long journey – and anticipation seemed to build by the week – but another AAPG Publication Pipeline delivery finally arrived successfully at its destination, this time to the AAPG Student Chapter at China University of Petroleum in Beijing (CUPB).
The freight of two pallets of 2,553 donated books, weighing 1.7 tons, included many tomes on geological subjects desperately needed by the students, such as paleontology, sequence stratigraphy, geotectonics, mineralogy and more.
The shipment originated at AAPG headquarters in Tulsa and was made possible largely by the kind sponsorship of the Chevron China Energy Company.
AAPG member Yvonne “Ye” Ran, minister of public relations for the AAPG CUPB Student Chapter, said the donations promote development of geological science within the university in more ways than one.
“The geological books in English donated by AAPG have helped us a lot,” she said. “On one hand, it enlarges students’ horizons and lets us learn how the research of geology develops in other parts of the world. On the other hand, more reading rooms can be established for students and professors in the College of Geosciences to borrow and read for convenience.”
Before the arrival of this shipment, foreign language books in the university library had been scarce, with limited copies of the few books they owned. Students were allowed to check textbooks out for one month at a time – if at all – and so they often found themselves forced instead to purchase books online with their own money, Ran said.
Ran and other representatives of AAPG, CUPB and Chevron China Energy Company gathered for the first time in late November to celebrate the August shipment.
“Being a part of this chapter, I feel honored to make a contribution to the service for students in our university and the development of our AAPG student chapter,” Ran said.
The shipment fully achieves the CUPB AAPG Student Chapter motto, Ran stated, which is “Going Out and Bringing In,” meaning enlarging their activities’ influence in their region and even the world, and bringing in resources to benefit their chapter, like the resources made possible by the Publication Pipeline.
“This donation encourages all members of AAPG Student Chapter of CUPB to go on making persistent efforts to expand our chapter’s influence, both at home and abroad, and to continue providing more academic exchanges and platform to broaden the horizon for all students in our university,” Ran said. “We’ll strive to become a pioneer of student work for AAPG in China and even in the Asia-Pacific region.”
AAPG’s Publication Pipeline project was created as a way to collect geoscience books and journals from those who no longer need them and then to forward these resources to overseas universities and libraries.
Learn more about the AAPG Publication Pipeline committee.