Barnes & Noble to the Rescue

Retail chain's book drive hopes to raise 25,000 books for ailing Tennessee school libraries

By Meg McCaffrey -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2004

It looks like Christmas has arrived a few months early in Tennessee. The giant bookstore chain Barnes & Noble has vowed to update the state's woeful school library collections by launching a massive book drive at its metropolitan area stores.

What sparked this generous offer? After reading an article in The Tennessean detailing the state's aging and inadequate collections, a group of Barnes & Noble store managers decided to take action. First, they asked media specialists in five major cities—Memphis, Johnson City, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Nashville—to compose a wish list of 100 books. Then in August, they launched "Top 10 in 2010," a four-week book drive in which patrons could donate books on the list.

The goal is to collect up to 25,000 books over the next six years, and so far, customer response has been brisk—about 3,200 books with extra-durable covers were about to be shipped from the Brentwood store to nearby schools before the start of the school year.

The initiative couldn't have come at a better time. School libraries in Tennessee rank among the bottom half of all media centers nationwide in terms of the size and age of their collections. Although the state mandates a minimum of 12 library books per student and none more than a decade old, most schools don't come close to meeting those requirements.

Kay Boan, a librarian at Poplar Grove School in the Franklin Special School District, specifically requested nonfiction history books about the Civil War to help bolster the fifth-grade social studies curriculum. "What I like so much about this program is that Barnes & Noble is working so closely with librarians regarding book selection," she says.

The book drive has certainly alerted the public to the dismal state of Tennessee's media centers. "People think libraries come well stocked," says Robbie Bryan, the customer relations manager in the Brentwood store. That's why Barnes & Noble has added another fund-raiser in which customers and corporations can donate a percentage of their purchases toward library materials. Next year, the retail chain plans to expand the program to all of Tennessee's 95 counties.