Volunteering Opportunity with Project Cicero

A message from the organizers:

Project Cicero's annual book drive will be held at the Hotel Pennsylvania on March 6-8. Project Cicero is a non-profit book drive that is designed to help create, or supplement, school and classroom libraries for children in under-resourced New York City public schools. Now in its ninth year, Project Cicero has distributed more than 1,150,000 new and gently used books to 6,500 New York City classroom and school libraries, reaching 250,000 students. Project Cicero solicits donations from individuals and more than 100 independent, public, and parochial schools each year, and has received generous contributions from First Book National Book Bank and book publishers.

Each year, hundreds of students, parents, librarians and teachers volunteer in all aspects of collecting, sorting and distributing the books. This year, volunteers are invited to join us the following times:

Friday, March 6, 4-8 p.m. (pizza served)
Saturday, March 7, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Sunday, March 8, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

To participate in this event, please email info@projectcicero.org the date and time you would like to attend. Thanks for your support!

Make Way for Lent: Field Trips, Week of Feb. 23, 2009

Over the next few months, we'll be seeing a number of events that focus on job skills, networking, and other recession-responsive subjects. This week features two such affairs: on Tuesday, SLA-NY hosts an evening program entitled "Opportunities of New York: Employment in a Challenging Environment"; and Friday brings an all-day METRO workshop, "How to Survive and Thrive in the Workplace". Now to the fun stuff:

• Feb. 24: What can book publishers do to keep the dream alive? Hear Robert Miller and Jason Epstein discuss "The Next Publishing Frontier" at the General Society Library.
• Feb. 25: Center for Book Arts presents the first installment of a series on the Vandercook. (It's a kind of proof press...if you're an ignoramus like I am, this website is quite edifying.)
• Feb. 26: METRO's Bibliographic Instruction Special Interest Group will feature three presentations of particular benefit to academic librarians.

And so not leastly, but lastly: MARDI GRAS PARTY! Here's a reminder note from Desk Set Nation:

Don't let Mardi Gras come and go without eating some king cake, donning some shiny beads, shaking it to some good ole' New Orleans tunes, and contributing towards the literary life of that great city!

Join the Desk Set at Daddy's for our party and Book Drive!
Tuesday, February 24th
7:30pm till late
Daddy's Bar
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Please donate to our Book Drive!
You can purchase one or more inexpensive paperbacks on our Amazon Wish-list, send it to New Orleans, and make a student's day. All books will be donated to the A.P. Tureaud Elementary School, located in the 7th ward. Like all NOLA schools, Tureaud has struggled mightily to survive post-Katrina. Books are scarce, and we can make a huge difference. Click here to make a donation.

If you donate a book, we'll reward you with a free pint of beer courtesy of the Blue Point Brewery. But you're not really doing it for the beer, right? So even if you cannot make the party, please consider donating a book and spreading the word.

Lotsa love,

Maria and Sarah
The Desk Set
www.thedeskset.org

Celebrate Mardi Gras & Donate Books to NOLA with the Desk Set

Advance notice, Mardi Gras revelers: the Desk Set is planning a phat Fat Tuesday shindig at Daddy's Bar in Williamsburg. The party coincides with a book drive for the A.P. Tureaud Elementary School, a public school in New Orleans that, like so many others, could really use a helping hand. The Desk Set has created an Amazon wish-list on the school's behalf. They've even arranged for the addition of bookplates with individual donor names! Help support literacy and make your donation today.

Gotham's Legacy Donated to U. Penn Libraries

As reported by Library Journal, the collection of the dearly departed Gotham Book Mart has been donated to the University of Pennsylvania's Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Bought at auction for $400,000, the collection's true value was likely several million dollars. And although the donation was made anonymously, the NY Times implies that Leonard Lauder, cosmetics heir and Penn grad, is the unnamed benefactor. Penn plans to digitize a portion of the collection, which includes "many first editions, books from small presses, experimental literary magazines, outsider literature published by Black Sparrow Press, poetry published by St. Mark's Church, books from the personal libraries of Truman Capote and Anais Nin, proofs, advance copies, pamphlets, photographs, posters, reference works and catalogs, broadsides, prints, postcards, and items signed by Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Robinson Jeffers, Woody Allen, Wallace Stevens, and John Updike."