Finding a Better World

Today at the library was almost entirely spent working on the Better World Books project I had started about a week ago. Now that I had shelves and shelves worth of books that had been pre-approved by BetterWorld for donation, I had to take them out of POLARIS, the SC library system, put them into a record list that would be used as a packing slip, and pack the books into boxes for shipping. For the books that were donated to us by patrons and never were library property, I had to type up the titles and authors of each book in a word document. This was a tedious process, but by the end of the day, I had a set of 6 boxes filled with books and packing slips, printed out UPS shipping labels, and scheduled pickup for tomorrow. I have another 5 almost ready for pickup that I should be able to finish on Wednesday. I also spent a lot of the day fixing the rest of the Bookkeeping computer - it didn't want to work with the SC Department of Revenue System (the programmers in Columbia did a really crappy job), so I had to play with it a little. Finally, I fixed up the Marion County Library Website - I kind of messed it up on Friday and had to undo some damage I did. Check it out! Click Here

Anyways, I guess you really didn't need to know all that technical stuff, but that's essentially all I did at work today. It overall wasn't super-exciting, but it was productive and I had fun listening to music while I was doing it. I thought you might be interested in what exactly Better World does; it's a really interesting company (also, it is a for-profit organization, although it does donate most of its profits to non-profits). Here's some background info from Wikipedia:

• They raise funding for over 80 non-profit literacy programs.
• They have collected over 10 million books, raised over 2.3 million for non-profit literacy programs, US$1.2 million for libraries and US$850,000 for student groups.
• Better World Books sells collected books through 17 online marketplaces, including Amazon.com, Ebay, and their own online e-commerce site, betterworldbooks.com.
• The main charities Better World Books donates to are:
  * Books for Africa– the largest shipper of donated books to the African continent – since 1988, shipped over 18 million books to 37 countries
  * Room to Read– supports the construction of schools, libraries & language labs, publishes local-language children’s books and funds long-term scholarships for young girls in South Asia & Africa
  * National Center for Family Literacy– provides literacy materials and training to over 6,000 family literacy programs across the United States
  * Worldfund in Latin America - supports high-quality education for impoverished children in Latin America
  * Robinson Community Learning Center in South Bend, IN
  * Prison Book Program in Quincy, MA

For dinner tonight, I made everyone Stouffer's Stir-fry (the way my Dad and I always make it, minus the barbeque sauce and Emeril essence) with the Oberst classic "yummy rolls." It is a family secret what keeps the yummy rolls so yummy. Sorry guys, some things just can't be disclosed in a blog. It was a big hit, and I was happy to do it. Tomorrow I get to go to Mullins and play Legos with the kids! Should be a fun day :)

*Note: The Pictures in today's blog post are of: 1) Some of the cats the kids in summer reading colored and 2) My supervisor Cathy doing our baby storytime program Mother Goose on the Loose, which I have told you guys about before.*