It's bad enough having to study in the summer heat, but these students have been forced to take shelter from the sun while indoors.

Visitors to Shenzhen Library have been spotted reading under the cover of their umbrellas in the city in southern China, reported the People's Daily Online.

The unusual scene came as a result of the intense sun streaming through the library's floor-to-ceiling windows.

Keeping cool: Students at a library in Shenzhen have been forced to put up umbrellas to stay out of the sun

Creative: There are no blinds, meaning students have been exposed to the bright sunlight while hard at work

Shenzhen has average temperatures of about 32 degrees Celsius during August.

The creative design of the library is meant to increase natural light but instead the study area is subjected to intense sunlight, increasing the already scorching heat.

As a last resort, visitors have decided to put up umbrellas en mass in an attempt to find some shade.

Officials reportedly looked into installing blinds at the library, but this was not practical due to the design of the building.

But using umbrellas indoors is far from being the most unusual way to stay cool.

Last month, more than 1,000 students at a university in Wuhan, central China, took refuge in their air-conditioned sports hall on a particularly hot night.

Photographs showed how the entire floorspace was covered with sleeping mats and blankets.

The university organised a number of giant sleepovers in the hall over the past few summers because many of the dormitories lacked air-conditioning.

Bad design: Sunlight streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the building, right next to the study area