or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk



Kickstarter Project for “Saving Our Public Libraries”

   January 5th, 2012

Book: Saving Our Public Libraries: Why We Should. How We Can, by Janet JaiLast week I received an email from Janet Jai, author of Saving Our Public Libraries: Why We Should. How We Can. According to the website, this is "a new book of library-funding success stories and best practices, which has been called an important book by reviewers."

She started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to give free copies of this book to as many U.S. libraries as possible. Her email was asked me to help spread the word, and it sounds like a worth-while campaign, so here you go.

From her message:

If 1,000 people donate only $10 each, I'll have the money I need to print enough books so I can give them free to all the public libraries in two, three, or more states. Donors vote to decide which states receive the free copies of my book. Donors also receive rewards (some fun and some serious that might be of great interest to one or more libraries).

Saving Our Public Libraries: Why We Should. How We Can is full of proven ways that libraries can obtain more operational funding. Its library-funding success stories (many of which use innovative funding strategies) came from more than 50 library experts across the U.S. The information in my book has never been brought together before. Most of it has never even been published before.

I thought you might want to mention this opportunity in your blog so that librarians can participate and vote so that their state's public libraries receive these free books. So far most of the donors to this campaign simply want to help and have chosen not to receive donor rewards so they will not be voting. That means that a very few votes could determine which states' libraries receive these helpful books. However, kickstarter is an all-or-nothing site. Donations are not charged to donor credit cards and I receive no funding unless I reach my full funding goal, which makes every donation very important. The campaign is starting slowly because of the busyness of the holidays, but many people have told me they will be contributing soon.

To learn more about the value of my book, please go to my website, www.vision-and-values.com/saving.htm. There's a review there from ALA's ALTAFF group and a quote from Marilyn Johnson. Please note that the Ohio and West Virginia state library associations also invited me to speak at their state library conventions this past year.

I've never pledged to a Kickstarter campaign before, so I was curious how it worked. You create a Kickstarter account to pledge your amount, then that links to your Amazon account - but you don't actually get charged until the goal is reached by the campaign deadline. If you're interested, check out the Kickstarter page to get started. The deadline is 9:49pm EST on Sunday Jan 15, 2012.




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