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Site life: One writer’s book donation bonanza

When you keep a website, it’s hard to know just who stops by every day. Not only are the numbers difficult to determine (site counters aren’t too terribly accurate), but you are dealing with an audience full of people you will most likely never meet. One assumes like-minded people find each other out there on the Internet, but does that mean the people reading pamie.com over the years are people just like me? On May of last year, I found out they were, in fact, much better.

I had read an article in Publisher’s Weekly stating that the city of Oakland was having a library crisis. They had lost their book-buying budget, among other cutbacks, so Oakland librarians had posted Amazon.com wish lists in order to get new books into circulation. I grew up going to libraries, and thought of how sad I’d be as a kid if there weren’t any new books to check out. I posted a link to the three wish lists I found on Amazon, and wrote a silly May Day entry, asking each reader to send a single book to the Oakland Public Library in the spirit of The Hudsucker Proxy — “you know, for kids.”

“You can walk around with a big head all day,” I wrote. ”Make a sticker that says ‘I Donated a Book.’”

In all honesty, I had predicted about thirty donations. It was a complete whim for me to ask strangers to help strangers, and I didn’t get particularly maudlin during my plea. I thought I’d make a few people laugh enough that they’d send over a children’s book or two.

By Monday, we had over fifty donations. The next day we were close to one hundred. Then we received letters of thanks from the Oakland librarians, and everything went crazy. The month of May had me constantly at my computer, updating lists and thanking donors far and wide. Word spread to other journals. People were writing their congressmen, starting book drives for their own libraries, and telling the world how libraries need our help. We remembered where we came from, that we were all once children in love with our local library, and we took time to give something back.

There were news reports, both local and worldwide. I spoke on a radio station, getting the host to donate books from her own office. Then I met library-lover Michael Moore, who recognized both me and the Oakland Public Book Drive after I had spoken about six words to him. You can read the exchange here, and if you know him, remind him of his desire to help me out, okay?

In the past eight months, fans of pamie.com have donated close to seven
hundred books, CDs, DVDs, and magazine subscriptions, as well as time, money, energy, and support. Before this book drive I had heard criticism that teens, young adults and thirtysomethings don’t get involved with their community, and aren’t the type of people who donate their time and money to causes. If there’s one thing I’m most proud of in all of this, it’s that we left that notion in the dust.

And as for the current state of the Oakland Public Library? Library supporters were successful in getting a measure on the March 2, 2004 ballot asking Oakland voters to pay an additional $75 per year in taxes to support the libraries. This tax would mean a healthy book budget, no library closures, sustained literacy and homework programs, among other things. But they need to raise $60,000 in the next few weeks to pay for mailers, signs, phone banks, and the other tools necessary for promotion. (If you would like to help, the mailing address for donations is: Oakland Neighborhood Library Coalition, 1829 Gaspar Drive, Oakland, 94611.)

There are other ways to help, too. Visit the Friends of the Oakland Public Library page, or donate a book.

I’ll just go ahead and thank you now for helping out a good cause. Let me know when you do, so I can add you to my list of cool kids.