Posted by: Xavier Helgesen, Co-Founder

We ran a customer survey yesterday for BetterWorld.com, and have been amazed by some of the responses.

"I live in South Africa and my text books for this year would have cost me the equivalent of a months salary. At better world I literally paid a fifth of that for all my books and the quality was excellent."

"As soon as I found out about BWB I began telling my friends to order from you in the future. If our money can not only purchase books but encourage reading programs, why wouldn't we support that?"

" The Better World Books philosophy matches several of my personal ethics very closely. I hate waste, I support recycling, I love books/reading/literacy and I support pragmatic, intelligent aid systems, especially those where the purchaser gains something of value as well as feeling they've helped others. Keep it up, folks. Peter Bryenton www.brypix.com"

"I would recommend Better World Books, because your prices are good, you send orders out quickly; I love to read and feel strongly that everyone should have the opportunity to discover reading, so I love knowing that by buying from you I am helping that happen."

Posted By: Andy Warzon, CTO

Tom Warth, the founder of Books for Africa, along with Pat Plonski, Executive Director, visited the Better World Books warehouse recently with our CEO David Murphy to discuss the mission of BFA, see the operation, and answer questions from employees about BFA, and announce further growth in the BWB-BFA partnership.

Here is a short clip of Tom Warth, discussing Books for Africa's mission and the partnership with BWB.

Posted By: Xavier Helgesen, Co-Founder

One of the things that makes me the proudest of Better World Books and Books For Africa is the way we can step in and directly make an impact in Africa. Instead of just passively reading about the problems of the world, we can make a real and tangible change.

In that regard, few book shipments have warmed my heart more than this one. Late in 2006, a shipment of 15,000 books direct from the Better World Books warehouse arrived at the Ahfad University for Women, a private, non-sectarian University with 5,000 students. Sudan and its people have been victims of a corrupt and genocidal ruling regime. I've always believed that regime change is more likely to succeed by educating minds than toting guns. I wonder if the next generation of leaders in Sudan may include women educated at this University.

Below are some pictures from the book distribution. These are exceptionally high quality and recent textbooks, which students in the USA and Canada originally paid about $1 Million for. All it took was a lot of gumption on the part of everyone involved with Better World to get them to Sudan.

 

Posted by: Natasha Harris, Senior Director, Pacific Region

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the 2007 Spring Regional Conference for Arizona chapters of Phi Theta Kappa.  This event was hosted by Cochise College, which is in the Southeastern corner of Arizona.  I had a great time!  The conference had a record number of attendees, and I must say that they were a very active bunch.  I was impressed to see all the awards being presented, and even more impressed that the state of Arizona has 15 5-Star chapters.  That is awesome!!

On Saturday I did a presentation, which was attended by a number of different schools.  Everything went really well, and, as usual – I got a lot of really great questions from the group.  Since the conference, I’ve been contacted by a number of new Arizona chapters who are interested in getting started right away.  I want to thank everyone who attended, and am very much looking forward to running some great book drives with you at the end of this spring semester!

Thanks for everything!

Happy March everyone!

Ok, so you're probably wondering, what's up with 2 million books?  Well, let me tell you.  The blood, sweat, and tears of thousands of college reps, private donors, and library staff across North America, with the additional help of our dedicated warehouse staff here in Mishawaka, Indiana, have done it again!  We recently sold our second, one-millionth book!

That brings our total to over 2 million books ever!  That over 2 million books collected from colleges, libraries, homes, etc. from all 50 U.S. states plus all 10 Canadian provinces.  That's over 2 million books shipped into the Better World Books warehouse with the hopes of finding new life.  That's over two million books shipped out of South Bend-Mishawaka to happy shoppers across the world.

And that's nearly 2 million satisified customers, trying to make a better world, one book at a time.  We have reached people in 160+ countries across the world.

Thanks to everyone for their dedication and support!  This is an amazing worldwide effort, and we are looking forward to finding new life for our third million books.

So now next time you're thinking, "What's going on with Ops?" Why haven't they posted anything new in months?  Think this--Books, books, books, and more books.  Moving them, sorting them, shelving, shipping, dancing with them.  (Well, only occasionally do we dance with the books.) Our Mishawaka crew is busting their rumps to get the job done.  Thanks to all our supporters out there, we've got plenty more to do!

Posted by: Mary Murphy, Senior South Regional Director

Better World Book's 'Book Drives for Better Lives' program was front and center on UGA's website earlier this week!  Congratulations for a successful past drives and best of luck in this coming semester UGA!

I would like to announce the Southeast Leadership Spotlight for March:  Callasandra Michaels: Vice President of Records from the Alpha Tau Rho chapter, Phi Theta Kappa at Coastal Carolina Community College.  Callie has strong leadership skills and has been a joy to work with throughout the book campaign.  Callie has made it clear, that the passion driving each member of her team, made her Fall collection of 81 boxes a resounding success.  I thank Callie and all of the Alpha Tau Rho Chapter for going the extra mile to help others in such an important way.

Posted By: Mary Murphy, Senior South Regional Director

The Better World Books project was an idea that arose in March 2006 at the Phi Theta Kappa Carolinas Regional Convention in Clemmons, North Carolina. Mary Murphy spoke on the benefits of this wonderful program, and our chapter’s officers knew immediately that this would be a project that each and every one of us would want to participate in. Once permission was granted by our college campus’s administration, we advertised the event on campus with posters, flyers, and emails to both our chapter’s members and the college’s faculty. The College Bookstore, our on-campus textbook retailer, helped promote the event by instructing students to bring any unwanted textbooks or textbooks with no resale value to our office. We offered a book pickup to any faculty member that wished to collect books in their office from students, and we set up a donation box outside of the Phi Theta Kappa office in our Student Services building. We kept these services available not only throughout book buyback days, but all throughout each semester. Beginning in May 2006 and continuing on through today, our chapter has made this event a resounding success, collecting 81 cartons of books for Better World Books. We feel that it has been an incredibly successful event, due not only to the advertisement on campus, but the passion driving each participant. Everyone involved with this project did so out of the desire for keeping our local landfill free of textbooks, and by empowering the next generation through our literacy partner, Room To Read. We look forward to participating in this project for years to come.

Callasandra Michaels
Vice President of Records
Alpha Tau Rho chapter, Phi Theta Kappa
Coastal Carolina Community College

Posted By: Niko Tomlinson, Senior Midwest Director

    The fantastic Western Wisconsin Technical College Phi Theta Kappa chapter (Beta Nu Chi!) joined the Better World Books team to run a book drive in support of Room to Read in the Spring of 2006.  The drive went well and they collected 24 cartons of books.  But they had just begun.  By coordinating with other college bookstores in the La Crosse area, the group was able to nearly double their Spring 06 output in this Fall drive (the Fall semester is usually trumped by the Spring semester 2 to 1!), collecting an astounding 47 cartons!  BWB Fall semester drives ended last week on February 15^th and the group notified me they had collected an additional 26 cartons of books- a great start for the Spring semester!

  Headed by advisor Linda Duffy, the amazing students of the Beta Nu Chi chapter are going to use their Fall scholarship check to help offset their traveling expenses to the April International Phi Theta Kappa convention ; this y ear being held in Nashville, TN.

Great work Beta Nu Chi!
-Niko

The Beta Nu Chi Chapter