“The primary goal of our book sales is to raise money for the Santa Clara City Library,” says executive director JoAnn Davis, “but we ultimately want to get the donated books into the hands of children, families, and the people who want them.” A study published in Social Science Research in January 2019 found a correlation between the number of books in a home library and higher levels of both literacy and numeracy in adulthood. It also leads to a lifetime of knowledge seeking. The benefits increase at 80 books at home, and seem to level off at around 350.
This issue of our newsletter shows what happens to your book, movie, and music donations after you bring them to the library (see graphic inside). And indeed, we sell books for only a couple of dollars apiece. That is a bargain for anyone looking to expand their home library. It also allows us to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the library. But not all donated books are sold. Additionally, not everyone in the community can make it to our book sales.
We partner with other community organizations to get books to readers of all ages, including:
- The Rotary Club of Santa Clara hosts an annual Christmas for Kids program, which we are delighted to donate books to. The children can select the books they want to read.
- Readers of all ages can find books at Free Little Libraries located at fire stations throughout Santa Clara.
- The Santa Clara Schools Foundation,the Rotary Club of Santa Clara, and the SCUSD’s Family Resource Center partner to host Steps for Success. Steps for Success is a program that helps students get new shoes as well as take home as many donated books as they want.
These partnering organizations, as well as others, allow us to get books into the hands of people who need them. All of this work, including supporting our world class public library, supports our mission of enriching life-long learning in Silicon Valley.