Need Books?
NEED BOOKS?
Are your library shelves empty? Or are they full of books that are old and tattered? Are your students largely from low-income families? You’ve come to the right place!
Your students deserve exposure to the love and rewards of reading. We provide brand new, hardcover books for K-8 school libraries (we do not serve high schools). You will receive current and popular fiction and nonfiction titles, with an emphasis on pleasure reading, selected by a professional librarian. In addition, we’ll partner your school with a sponsor group (usually a private school, scout troop or civic group) that is interested in assisting your students discover and/or nurture their love of reading. This sponsor will run a book drive on your school’s behalf from which you will receive thousands of gently used paperbacks for classroom library sets.
Along with volunteers from your school community, we will paint murals in your library and provide furniture for a reading corner. This service event—which includes processing books for library circulation—usually takes place on a Saturday. You can see samples of previous murals in our photo gallery, or you may have ideas of your own. We’re happy to collaborate, but please keep in mind 1) painting must be completed in one day 2) some painting will be done by children 3) paint is donated, so color availability cannot be guaranteed.
To sum it up, three things will happen at our Saturday service event:
- We’ll paint your library
- We’ll physically process library books
- We’ll organize classroom library sets
Your responsibilities include:
We require participation. When we paint the library and organize books, it’s critical that members of your community contribute. This is a partnering event and we want your community to be involved. We ask that 10-20 volunteers from your school participate, and there must be at least one adult present for every three children. Teachers and administrators are encouraged to volunteer as well.
It’s also important that library books are available to the students as soon as possible. We understand that different schools use different library management software to circulate books. In advance of the event, we’ll meet to determine the best way to get your books processed in a timely and efficient manner. We usually do the physical processing on the day of the event with volunteers, but your school must commit uploading the titles and barcodes into the circulation system.
Finally, we do not want your school to view these books as a gift. We believe all children have the right to enjoy quality pleasure reading books!
If you are interested in participating in our program, please complete the form below, or download and fill out our paper application and mail to:
Access Books Bay Area
47 Octavia Street
San francisco, CA 94102
Access Books Bay Area School Service Project Application
6/18/2019 – If you recently submitted an application within the last month, please resubmit. The form was not working due to a technical difficulty, which has now been resolved.