The Women's Prison Book Project
Guide to Organizing a Book Drive

Thank you for your interest in helping The Women's Prison Book Project (WPBP) collect much needed book donations. WPBP sends free books and resources to women in prisons all over the United States. We rely almost totally on donated new and used books to make this effort possible. In the Twin Cities area, many people drop off books at our book drop box located at Arise Bookstore. We also conduct local book drives tied into events like cabarets, plays, movies, and concerts. Those of you who live outside of the Twin Cities area can also help in these efforts by staging a WPBP book drive in your school, workplace, church, or political group.

Organizing a book drive is a great way to help WPBP obtain much-needed books. It can also provide you or your group with opportunity to start a discussion about prison issues. We have found that the most effective book drives either focus around gathering a specific kind of book, or focus on soliciting donations from a specific group of people. What kinds of books do you find most interesting? The more you know about the kinds of books you're trying to collect, the easier it will be for you to publicize the drive or find the right place to hold it. Here are some samples of ideas or book drives that others have organized.

• Books can be collected at a public event like a concert, lecture, movie or play. Folks could even bring book donations for a discount on the ticket price. Tying a book drive to an event that deals with prison issues is also a good idea. For example, last winter we held a book drive in conjunction with a play about the death penalty, and people could bring their donations to the play itself. You can publicize the book drive in the promotional materials for the event.
• You can organize a book drive within a group you are associated with, like your school, political group, church, or workplace. Often it is easier to do outreach and publicity for a smaller, more defined group.
• You can organize a house party, birthday party, or holiday party and ask your guests to bring books as gifts or donations.
• Work with a local bookstore or community center to establish a permanent WPBP book drop box. This would provide WPBP with an ongoing, steady supply of books. This option is a great idea, but it requires an ongoing commitment of time to do outreach/publicity, the ability to keep track of the books, and money for postage.

Here are some tips that others have found helpful in the past.

• Be focused in your efforts. Have a definite time frame during which the book drive happens.
• Let your intended audience help guide what kinds of books you try to collect.
• Have convenient drop-off sites for the books.
• Organize informational events or talks around the book drive, We may be able to help you find local speakers in your area, or provide you with a video about prison issues for you to screen. Try to enlist other groups to help out.
• Be clear about the kinds of books you do and do not accept. Remember that we cannot accept hardback (exceptions are certain textbooks) or spiral bound books.
• Keep in contact with WPBP and ask lots of questions. You want a book drive to gather a lot of books, but you also want WPBP to be able to use the books you collect.
• WPBP can provide you with brochures, newsletters and other materials to educate people about WPBP and about women in prison. Email us to get copies of these materials.

Here's a list of the kinds of books we are always in need of:

• Dictionaries, English and Spanish
• Women's self-help and drug/alcohol recovery issues
• Sexual abuse survivor's issues
• Women's health and fitness, including HIV/AIDS
• Wicca, astrology, dream interpretation
• Lesbian and Bisexual fiction and non fiction
• Arts and crafts
• Fiction and nonfiction by women of color
• Poetry
• Education topics, especially GED prep materials, basic math and algebra text books, and learning languages
• General fiction, we send out some "classic" literature but mainly contemporary fiction, especially fiction by women and people of color.
• Parenting
• Mysteries/horror

We need other kinds of books as well: politics, history, humor, large print, biographies, philosophy, feminism, etc. but the ones listed above are our most requested topics.

Finally, what do you do with the books you've collected once your book drive is over? First off, you should sort through the donations using the guidelines already outlined. Any books you cull from the donations can be sold at used bookstores; take the money you get from them (which will probably not be a lot) and buy a few books covering some of the subject areas we need the most. Please email us with questions about whether or not a certain book or books would be good for the project. We're happy to help you in the sorting process.

After you've pulled out any books that don't fit our criteria, it's time to pack them up and ship them to WPBP. The cheapest route to go is to mail them to us using the US Postal Service's media mail or parcel post rates. These are very inexpensive compared to first class rates. Do not send us the books via a courier like United Parcel Service. Our office is not staffed during the day, so probably no one would be around to sign for a package. Our mailing address is:

Women's Prison Book Project
c/o Arise Bookstore
2441 Lyndale Ave. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55405

womensprisonbookproject@gmail.com

Email us to let us know when you ship the books, so we can be ready to deal with receiving them.