After a journey of around 8000 km, on March 3rd, 2021, the precious collection of books donated by the late German Prof. Dr. Werner Keller reached its designated  destination at the Library on Xipu campus, Southwest Jiaotong University.  

The late Professor. Dr. Werner Keller was a famous Goethe researcher, former chairman of the International Goethe Institute, and former director of Germanic Languages & Literatures Research Institute in the University of Cologne. He highly valued the research and dissemination of Goethe’s works in China, and had extensive and in-depth academic exchanges with the German Classical Literature Research Center of SWJTU. He donated all his personal collection of books to the University at the request of Professor Mo Guanghua from the Department of German Language and Literature of the School of Foreign Languages.

To facilitate the landing of the books at SWJTU, an expert from the University library was sent to Pro. Dr. Werner Keller’s house in Germany and worked with Dr. Mechthild Keller, widow of the late professor, to register and sort out the books. Two years later, the well-organized books were transported by China Sci-Tech Information Imp & Exp Corporation to the library on Xipu Campus on March 3rd, 2021.

This donated collection contains more than 5,000 German books, some of which are rare editions of high literary and academic research value. To pay tribute to Pro. Dr. Werner Keller and fulfill his wishes to promote Sino-German cultural exchanges, the library will immediately start the arrangement of the books and open a special reading in memory of him.