Libraries Continue to Pitch in for Haiti

January 26, 2010

Library workers and educators are keeping their sleeves rolled up as they continue contributing to the international effort to provide moral and monetary aid to earthquake-stricken Haiti.

  • Boston Public Library's Mattapan branch, which now houses the city's resource center for area families seeking contact with Haitian loved ones and ways to help them. Operated by the Mayor's Office of New Bostonians, the center provides translators, crisis counselors, computers, and international phone lines.
  • [UPDATED] The Resource Shelf blog, which has compiled a list of resources about the Haiti crisis, including information about the a partnership through February 19 between the National Library of Medicine and the Association of American Publishers to offer free full-text articles from over 200 biomedical journals and over 30 select reference books for libraries and hospitals affected by the earthquake.
  • [UPDATED] The American Library Association, which has created an information page that includes instructions on how to contribute to the Association's Haiti Library Relief Fund.
  • Volusia County (Fla.) Public Library's Deltona Regional Library, which has donated use of its new ampitheater for a January 30 concert organized by the Deltona Arts and Historical Society. All donations are designated for the Red Cross.
  • [UPDATED] Garwood (N.J.) Free Public Library and the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock, which are giving overdue fines to Haiti relief efforts. Garwood PL has designated UNICEF as the recipient of fines collected through January 30; CALS is donating fines received until February 7 to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.
  • Library staff members of Indiana State University, who are holding a silent auction January 28 and donating the proceeds of winning bids and monetary donations to Mountain Top Ministries in Gramothe, Haiti.

At least one heartfelt effort was organized much closer to home: A library in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic—some 90 miles from the devastated Haiti capital of Port-au-Prince—began collecting clothes and toys donated by area residents just after the earthquake hit. "The Dominican Republic is so poor, yet [the people] donated stuff for the Haitian people," said Williamsport, Pennsylvania, volunteer George Way in the January 21 Williamsport Sun-Gazette. Way, who had traveled to the Dominican Republic with six other Pennsylvanians, was an eyewitness to the generosity.

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