By Chris Chang, posted Sep 15, 2011 at 8:17 AM, 1,688 views,

Chinese Students Very Pissed At Apple Store Opening in School’s Library

It seems like the folks at Peking University (China’s most prestigious university) are not happy with Apple. Why? The Peking University has added an Apple store inside the campus library and this caused the students to accuse Apple of invading the sacred space of their library. And some of them even argued that the Apple store is too commercial and against the spirit of study.

Actually, this is not an Apple Store. It is an Apple Experience Center. It is meant to showcase the latest range of Apple products, and help students with their study. Here’s what the library employee told the local media:

“We have worked with Apple to provide a better learning environment to our students. The center aims to offer students more access to study materials and information through high technology. We will install study-related software to assist students using digital methods.”

The Apple Experience Center is enclosed by glass walls and covering 40 square meters, occupies a former study space on the library’s third floor.

The center displayed iMacs, MacBooks, iPhone cases and accessories with no price tags.

According to the library employee, the center will not allow on-site sales. However, if people do want to purchase something, they can order through the store and must show student ID to get a discount. The store itself is an authorized reseller in China and Peking University’s partner in this cooperation.

You may wonder, what do the students think of this Apple Experience Center? Well, most of the students do not support the idea. Here’s what a student surnamed Chen told the Global Times:

“It’s totally against the spirit and environment of the library. Apple should have discounts or give-back activities if they want self-promotion, other than introducing this commercial thing into a sacred place like this.”

Other views are similar and see the center as a problem. One student said:

“Learning and shops should be separate. Why opening an Apple shop inside a library? Isn’t this a promotion strategy of Apple?”

The students may be very pissed, but there are some students who think the idea sounds good. A student surnamed Guan said,

“I’d like to see another place in the school where students can have more study resources with the assistance of digital products.”

Another student said,

“I remember in my University in Sydney, we also had an Apple Shop next to but not inside the library.”

And here’s what a professor from Peking University said,

“It’s good to have a digital service to help students study, but the location should be somewhere independent that does not disturb others.”

From our point of view, we think it’s not appropriate to open an Apple store/experience center inside a university’s library. It may be alright if there are iMacs and MacBooks in the library for students to get access to study materials and information. But we just don’t see the need to purchase Apple products from the library.

One more thing, the Peking University’s library had cooperated with another technology company, Hanvon, to set up several e-book stands in the library to help students find information more efficiently. So no iPads?

Source: Sina Tech via People’s Daily