New Orleans Public Library Seeking Book Donations
New Orleans Public Library Seeking Book Donations
(thanks Boing Boing for the heads up! LINK)
I have a lot of book. Until I recently had to move out of the townhouse I shared with my now ex-girlfriend, the walls in my office were completed covered in bookshelves that we had specially put in to store my collection. Before we moved into the townhouse, I gave a ton of books away. It was actually harder than you would think to give the books away. I tried to sell them, and no one wanted them. I tried to give them to the library, and they refused.
Do you know who eventually took them?
The Broward County Jail.
However, I could not give them any cookbooks (inmates don't have access to stoves or gourmet ingredients) or anything about crime (they teach correspondence classes, but not any that are based on Stephen King or Dean R. Koontz or John D. MacDonald novels).
So I drove up to the jail and parked at the front gate and waited for a women from the Community Outreach program, who thanked me profusely for my donation of unwanted paperbacks. A few weeks later I received a thank you letter for the local sheriff. It made me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside, and since they were going to be thrown away anyway, it really didn't matter to me if an inmate actually read the books at all.
(thanks Boing Boing for the heads up! LINK)
I have a lot of book. Until I recently had to move out of the townhouse I shared with my now ex-girlfriend, the walls in my office were completed covered in bookshelves that we had specially put in to store my collection. Before we moved into the townhouse, I gave a ton of books away. It was actually harder than you would think to give the books away. I tried to sell them, and no one wanted them. I tried to give them to the library, and they refused.
Do you know who eventually took them?
The Broward County Jail.
However, I could not give them any cookbooks (inmates don't have access to stoves or gourmet ingredients) or anything about crime (they teach correspondence classes, but not any that are based on Stephen King or Dean R. Koontz or John D. MacDonald novels).
So I drove up to the jail and parked at the front gate and waited for a women from the Community Outreach program, who thanked me profusely for my donation of unwanted paperbacks. A few weeks later I received a thank you letter for the local sheriff. It made me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside, and since they were going to be thrown away anyway, it really didn't matter to me if an inmate actually read the books at all.
I recently moved into a new apartment, a smaller apartment with way fewer bookshelves. To tell you the truth, all of my more favorite books are sitting in the trunk of my car because I have no place to put them in the apartment.
(Don't even ask me about the multiple Hefty bags overstuffed with books sitting in the trunk of car, or what I would do if I had to get something out of the bottom of my trunk. Something like, oh, I don't know, my spare tire and jack because I have a gigantic tear in my rear passenger-side tire that looks like someone gouged it with a screwdriver.)
Picture of my tire taken with my cameraphone this morning.
I have to make some serious decisions as to what books I am going to keep. I've already packed and taken the obvious choices: my collection of music books, some of my classical literary works and a few of my guilty pleasure popular fiction. But I left a ton of stuff on the shelves, and however much I want to keep every book, I know it is not going to be possible.
But, once I make the decision as to what I keep and what I don't, I know where the castoffs will be sent: the New Orleans Public Library. From a post on the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) website:
Seeking Book DonationsThe New Orleans Public Library(New Orleans LA)
The New Orleans Public Library is asking for any and all hardcover and paperback books for people of all ages in an effort to restock the shelves after Katrina. The staff will assess which titles will be designated for its collections. The rest will be distributed to destitute families or sold for library fundraising. Please send your books to:
Rica A. Trigs, Public RelationsNew Orleans Public Library219 Loyola AvenueNew Orleans, LA 70112
If you tell the post office that they are for the library in New Orleans, they will give you the library rate which is slightly less than the book rate.
I can't think of a better way to get rid of unwanted (though not unloved) reading material than to send it to a place that recently lost close to everything. If you have some books that are collecting dust in your attic or garage, you should consider throwing them in a box and heading to the post office to send them to the above address.
You'll be happy you did.
And so will the little boy or girl who is able to check out one of the books you sent.
posted by Unknown @ 4:45 PM
2 Comments:
i have boxes and boxes of books taking up space in my garage. I should send them there. I need to do somethings to make me feel like a better person.
You should do it, Ethan. Throwing them in a box and sending them to N'awlins is better than them sitting there waiting to be eaten by a possum or driving up to Pompano to give 'em to BSO.
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