Library project

[foolsgold]

While on a recent trip, my wife and I met a South African woman, Esther Nkosi.  While discussing our country’s educational systems, she told me about the poor state of the schools in her hometown of Nelspruit.  Textbooks are scarce and out of date and there is no library in town.  For students to get the materials they require, they must take an hour and a half each way bus ride that is often cost prohibitive for many families.

I started thinking about some of the books my library discards because they have been replaced by another edition, aren’t in the best of shape or no longer fill an academic niche for the university.  After a bit of brainstorming, the three of us hatched a plan to start up a library in Nelspruit, partially stocked by discarded books from our collection.  In recent months, she’s had a small cinder-block library built while Michelle and I have collected several hundred titles which I am cataloging and processing.  We are still working on the shipping details, but are planning on sending our first shipment in late June/early July.

We definitely could use more books and so I am turning to you to ask if you have anything we could use to stock the shelves.  Specifically, we are looking for the following subject areas with a reading level up to early high school:

Art (instruction or history)
Dictionaries (any European or African language)
World/African History
Music tutorials
Literature
Picture books
Young adult fiction
Recent computer program guides
Any sort of instructional repair guides for automobiles, plumbing, woodworking, etc.
Theology
Sciences (Earth, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, etc)

We are looking for either single titles or recent school textbooks that are being discarded because of a curriculum change.  We can pick up these titles if you live in Cincinnati.

If you have any questions or can make a donation, please contact us at lighthousecommunitylibrary@gmail.com

Thanks!

[foolsgold]

The Tea Cozy is also having an African influenced tea the weekend of June 21-22nd and all money raised above our cost will go to the library.  More on that later.

[cuddlyevil]

FG, please keep us posted about the tea. I have friends coming in that weekend and one of them spent some time in Kenya and might be interested in the tea.

I might have some older art history textbooks, I'll check when I get home.

[va_vacious]

I'm going to talk to my contacts in the schools here- do you plan on taking multiple copies of books? I'll see what I can do about text books.

This is awesome that you've gotten this going.  I'm definitely going to ask around for books that I can send.

Edited to add: I've also contacted my Ohio-based friends who might be able to help out, too.

[Wherle]

Not sure if I have anything like the above, but I'll look around and if I do, you're welcome to them.

I'll also add that I think this is awesome. I hope you don't mind, but I've posted this to MySpace, because I have a lot of scholarly and creative friends on there who probably have a shit ton of those types of materials they no longer use. Hopefully, they can help.

[whigsgeek]

FG, this is great. Can you please post (or PM me) an address to which I can send books? Thanks!

[watusi]

Hi y'all.
 In a previous life, I was the boarder known as Watusi. But I'm baaaaack.   
I haven't really been gone, just in the shadows lurking. Nothing to say I guess...until now.

This is a fantastic thing to do and I'd like to offer my help if needed. I deal with international shipping everyday; Customs paperwork,freight forwarders, international reg's, all that good stuff. If you need any help with questions about proper documentation or logistics choices,whatever...let me know. If I don't have the answer, I know someone who does.

[JohnnyRoyale]

Depending on how much exposure you're looking for, we could write a story about this for Randomville?

Also, I have a bunch of college text books (mostly business) that are sitting around collecting dust that I wasn't able to re-sell. Interested?

[whigsgeek]

Hi y'all.
 Â In a previous life, I was the boarder known as Watusi. But I'm baaaaack.

Yay! Glad you're back!

[eyeball]

I don't have any books to donate (though I'll keep my eyes peeled while yard saling this summer), I'd be happy to throw a little cash your way to help offset your shipping costs.

[foolsgold]

Thanks for the responses.  Jose, I will get back to you about the shipping.  We did luck out for a May shipment as a local church is letting us piggy-back on a shipment they are sending out to a town located only 70 kilometers from Nelspruit for just a donation.  NICE!

Obviously, this moves our time table up significently, so I'll be contact those who've offered this week.  I've already received 5 emails from strangers I can looking to unload, one of whom is a Scott contact (thank you.) 

More later...really overwhelmed.