Emory is hosting International Education Week Nov. 18-22, 2024. IEW is a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education to promote and celebrate the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide. This includes celebrating the outstanding international students and scholars who travel to Emory for work and study; Emory’s partnerships and internships with global companies and NGOs like Delta, Coca-Cola, and CARE; our refugee health and entrepreneurship partnerships in the Clarkston community; the rich contribution of global voices among our faculty, staff, students, and alumni; international research exchange; and a variety of international education experiences, ranging from for-credit semester programs to summer fieldwork experiences.
For the first time in nearly a decade, the Office of Global Strategy and Initiatives is convening stakeholders across Emory to celebrate International Education Week as a cross-campus event. Woodruff Library’s International and Area Studies (IAS) librarian team is a key partner and enthusiastic contributor to IEW.
The IAS team has planned three interesting events that aim to highlight the breadth and depth of international information resources and library services available to the Emory community. Emory hosts one of the leading international research collections in the country. The collection has specific strengths in areas of history, literature, religion, and the social sciences. The team coordinates collecting in many languages with a special focus on Arabic, Chinese, French, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Sanskrit, Spanish, Russian, Telugu, and Tibetan.
The first IEW library event was an interactive open house in the Woodruff Library on Nov. 18 called “Name that Middle Eastern and South Asian Food.” The event was open to everyone but in particular invited students studying Arabic, Hebrew, and Hindi. It featured snacks and delicacies found across the Middle East and South Asia. Visitors were invited to taste, name, and describe these treats in languages they know and contribute to the creation of an innovative multilingual culinary dictionary. In the process, they were able to explore how flavors, foods, and words move across cultures and communities. The event also hosted a pop-up display of dictionaries and cookbooks related to the cultures of the Middle East and South Asia.
The second IEW library event is a special library display on the second floor of Woodruff 
Library called “New Books from Around the World.” This display is scheduled to launch Nov. 18. It highlights recent acquisitions from different languages and areas covered by the IAS Team. They feature new publications in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Sanskrit, Spanish, Telugu, Ukrainian, and Yiddish. Titles in English from and about different parts of the world will also be included.
The third IEW library event is participation in the IEW-focused Wonderful Wednesday fair scheduled for Nov. 20. Wonderful Wednesday is a weekly celebration hosted at the ESC Promenade and McDonough Plaza from 12 – 2 p.m. Members of the Emory community are welcome to gather together to uplift different aspects of campus life. The IAS Team will host a special table representing Woodruff Library’s international collections by highlighting unique language instruction and education materials. They will also offer a free giveaway of some international book titles.
Through these three IEW library events, the Woodruff Library’s IAS Team aims to highlight the important place of Emory Libraries in supporting Emory’s cultural diversity and the university’s renowned international research and global engagement.
To learn more about IEW and the full set of events across campus, please visit the website.
—by Gautham Reddy, librarian for South Asian Studies and Religion, Robert W. Woodruff Library at Emory University