No Donation Wasted
Surplus books supply overseas Catholic libraries
by Dr. Herman Peterson

Library Assistant Norma Forbes and Michael Nowicki, public services librarian, prepare a shipment of books for the missions.

"What can a librarian do about the situation in the Holy Land?" This was the exasperated question I put to Br. David Carroll, F.S.C., about six or seven years ago. We had met at a conference and I volunteered to drive him to the airport to hear his answer. Brother David is under secretary general of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA). He knows a great deal about the human needs in the Holy Land and what the Church is doing to alleviate these conditions.

CNEWA is "a papal agency for humanitarian and pastoral support." It operates in the Middle East, Northeast Africa, Eastern Europe and South Central Asia. More about CNEWA can be found on their website www.cnewa.org. The organization implements the principles of Catholic social teaching through exercising the preferential option for the poor with an eye toward creating an environment where justice and peace can flourish. CNEWA builds churches, hospitals, schools, colleges and seminaries.

Thus, education was a big part of the solution, Brother David told me. He explained that CNEWA was just beginning a program of helping to supply books to libraries in the organization's areas of operation. Many of these libraries support educational institutions that have not received any new books in years. He asked if I would send any donated duplicate books to CNEWA in New York so that it could send them overseas. I immediately answered his call.

Seminary libraries get many, many books donated. This is a good thing; I never turn away a donation. Most of the time, however, only about ten percent of the donations get added to the library collection. The rest are duplicates of items already owned by the library. What should be done with these duplicates?

I place them on a sale shelf for the seminarians, faculty and other library patrons to purchase for twenty-five cents each. The money raised in this manner is used to send the unwanted books to Brother David so he can send them to places in need overseas.

Every year Brother sends me a report that indicates where CNEWA has sent books and how many they sent. It gives a good idea of where some of the books we've donated to him have ended up. Bethlehem University, the Catholic University of Ukraine, a number of seminaries in India and the Catholic seminary in Baghdad have been among the recipients.

So, every time you buy a used book from the Szoka Library you assist in this outreach of supporting Catholic education in the Holy Land and other mission regions.