On May 19, 2020, Boroujerdi and Rao Quan, Director of the National Library of China, via video call discussed strengthening the cooperation, the measures taken to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, how to provide services to clients and staff during the epidemic, and the upcoming program.
Referring to the reopening of the NLC after 109 days, Quan said that it was a sign of the country’s fundamental success in controlling the coronavirus and expressed its willingness to share experiences with Iran. Emphasizing the libraries’ unique role to encourage people to fight the disease, he added that China had succeeded in preventing the coronavirus by the use of an integrated system and by the cooperation of the people; and in this regard, online bookstores continued their activities and online communication to access databases was made possible by 30 sites; moreover, restrictions on internet access to resources were removed.
The head of the NLC referred to the previous agreements between the National Libraries of Iran and China and called for the expansion of such interactions.
In this video call, Boroujerdi said that the national libraries of Iran and China, as two cultural institutions, should make the necessary efforts to develop the culture of the society, especially in creating hope among the people, and the effective actions of these cultural institutions should be also shared.
Considering the interactions with the national libraries of other countries, it can be said that the national libraries of countries have common ideas for managing such situations because many of the actions taken by the National Library of China have been performed in Iran as well.
Evaluating the importance of NLC’s efforts to provide information to society in the situation of the Covid-19 outbreak, he said that in order to reach out to the public and provide the appropriate conditions for access to information, the NLC accelerated its digitization project so that people could access the resources they needed at their homes.
Boroujerdi mentioned that in the NLAI, they have allocated a section (room) to the NLC that contains information about the National Library of China and introduces some of the books.
