Turn Trash into Treasure Recycling Children's Books

How Disposed Picture Books Benefit Rural Schools

Abstract

Children’s books disposed from the libraries can be trash, but in great varieties, once they are recycled properly, they will be treasure. There are thousands of children’s books disposed from the public libraries in the US due to different kind of reasons, through these years with careful handling, they become useful collections for the children of countries, where English is a major foreign language. They also have become valuable learning materials in schools and in the public libraries in Taiwan.In 1999, an earthquake stroke Taiwan and caused severe damages in the Central part of Taiwan. Many schools suffered from the damages. This tragedy brought in much concerns and donations from all over the world. North America Taiwan Women Association (NATWA) visited the damaged area and found that school libraries were in extreme need of help. In addition to monetary donation, NATWA realized the spiritual healing is as important as reconstruction process, therefore in 2004 NATWA launched “Turn Trash into Treasure Recycling Children’s Books” program mainly collecting off-shelf children’s books from American public libraries and shipped books to Taiwan, where the books are mostly in need. Geographically the recycling children’s books are mostly collected from about 45 public libraries in the Northern New Jersey area.This paper presents how the project was initiated and promoted, so as programs were designed to make maximum utilization of the recycled children’s books. Summarize statistical status of the project as well as cooperative process during the past four years.