Posted by Mary Murphy, Southeast Senior Director

The Phi Theta Kappa International Convention was everything we expected it to be…an amazing group of people from throughout the United States and as far away as Guam and the United Arab Emirates with positive energy, intellect, enthusiasm and compassion!  It was so much fun to see everyone – thank you to everyone who came by our table to say hello!  Here is a picture of Broward Community College – South Campus, a stellar Phi Theta Kappa in Florida!



In the picture, L to R,  Heather Dulman, Darwin Lopez, Troy Jeffers, Gracia Bonilla, Kendall Ramsijewan, (recipient of the Guistwhite scholarship) Natassicia Pemberton, Mary Murphy (Better World Books) and Tayna Hall-Harris.

Posted by Roselle Agner, Mid-South Regional Director

In honor of Earth Day I want to share some interesting facts and numbers about our environment:

The average number of solid waste produced by college students a year 640

The number of trees saved from recycling 1 ton of paper 17

The percentage of solid waste disposed of in landfills 95

Percentage of recycled materials in Better World Books shipping boxes 50

The amount of books saved from landfills through "Book Drives for Better Lives" 6,200 tons (aka 6200 * 17 = ~105,400 trees!)

The amount of carbon offsets from Betterworld.com sales 1725 tons

The number of people needed to start change and make a difference ***1***

Thank you for your contribution to positive social and environmental changes through book drives on your campus [ed.-- and book purchases at Betterworld.com]!

Happy Earth Day,
Roselle

By Erin Gerber, Account Representative

I started my Earth Day celebration a little early this year.  On Saturday morning, I woke up early and met up with my Better World Books colleagues and friends at Rose Circle Park for a volunteer opportunity with Trees Atlanta, a local non-profit dedicated to “protecting and improving our urban environment by planting and conserving trees.”  Robby, the representative with Trees Atlanta put us to work mulching trees in the park.  Mulching, I learned, is a great way to protect trees as it helps to retain moisture in draught conditions, deters runoff and evaporation, and it helps to protect the root system of a tree from lawnmowers and weed eaters.  It’s also relatively inexpensive and the finished project looks great.  We spent our morning filling and carrying buckets with mulch to be spread three to four inches deep around the plant canopies.  It was hard work (I have the sore feet and muscles to prove it), but well worth the effort!

 As an added bonus, Dustin and Nicole brought Cairo along to supervise.  As you can see, she did a great job of making sure everything ran smoothly.  

 

Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist

This is the first in an ongoing feature: "Order of the Week." In this feature we'll be highlighting the book orders that we receive that we particular enjoy for one reason or another, allowing you at the end of the year to vote for "Order of the Year." The person who made the "Order of the Year" will be rewarded with a gift certificate from BetterWorld.com!

43 Books
$413.00
P from Quebec

I think it's safe to say that P is an ornathusiast...Check out the list of books after the jump

Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist

Check out this interview with our social enterprise/green pro/co-founder/general expert at stuff, Xavier Helgesen!



Good times! They kinda were quick with the whole "Oscars thank you music ending" though, no?

Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist

Senior Director in the Southeast, Mary Murphy, forwarded me an email indicitave of the great efforts being put in around the country (and Canada!) as book drives begin to pop up (at over 1400 campuses this semester!)

I received all of the boxes and the posters so thank you for sending all of that so quickly!  We have already started the drive and have began collecting!  I just want to tell you how much I appreciate all of your hard work, this is a wonderful company and it is people such as yourself that truly make the world a better place!  Thank you again from myself and the entire Charleston Southern Family!

Alissa

Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist

If you're near a computer, come 6:35pm EST, check out this live interview hosted by "RSS Ray" about Green business with our own Xavier Helgesen!

Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist



Seattle Green Festival = major success.  First of all I'd like to thank our lovely volunteers who helped us collect 3 pallets of books(!) at the festival and looked good doing it.



Next I'd like to thank all the people who came by the chat it up with us lads, about the environment, books, and pretty much anything else (and whoever bought Jaime's hide-a-book (as I put it, to hide things from your friends who don't read), enjoy that awesome piece of craftsmanship).




Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I'd like to thank the burrito place, for making delicious, delicious, organic burritos, AlterEco for their myriad delicious chocolate selection (try the mint, wow!) and HonesTea for the case of lemon black tea that I nabbed at the end of the conference.  Muy delicioso!  OK, OK, so more thanks to the people who came to talk to us (including the gent who said he had bought 60+ books from us and knew our business model better than some of us did, wow).




Book your tickets now, Chicago, May 16, making it happen as the official bookstore of their Green Fest!

Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist



On one hand, I'm tempted to post this just because of its prose, which is beautifully done.  On the other hand I'm tempted to post this because it's a Nobel lecture for literature, which is certainly a worthy post.  But what made me give in to temptation was her involvement with getting books to the African continent (something we know a little about, having shipped 920,000+ books to our partners...)

I am standing in a doorway looking through clouds of blowing dust to where I am told there is still uncut forest. Yesterday I drove through miles of stumps, and charred remains of fires where, in '56, there was the most wonderful forest I have ever seen, all now destroyed. People have to eat. They have to get fuel for fires.

This is north-west Zimbabwe in the early eighties, and I am visiting a friend who was a teacher in a school in London. He is here "to help Africa," as we put it. He is a gently idealistic soul and what he found in this school shocked him into a depression, from which it was hard to recover. This school is like every other built after Independence. It consists of four large brick rooms side by side, put straight into the dust, one two three four, with a half room at one end, which is the library. In these classrooms are blackboards, but my friend keeps the chalks in his pocket, as otherwise they would be stolen. There is no atlas or globe in the school, no textbooks, no exercise books, or biros. In the library there are no books of the kind the pupils would like to read, but only tomes from American universities, hard even to lift, rejects from white libraries, or novels with titles like Weekend in Paris and Felicity Finds Love.

There is a goat trying to find sustenance in some aged grass. The headmaster has embezzled the school funds and is suspended, arousing the question familiar to all of us but usually in more august contexts: How is it these people behave like this when they must know everyone is watching them?

Read on at the Nobel site

Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist



Today if you want to find five good looking guys who are into supporting literacy by selling books (as well as bicycling, basketball, and Patriot League sports/Notre Dame football) then swing by the Washington State Convention Center in downtown Seattle.  There, if you can wade through the awesomeness at the Greenfest you'll find, Rudy (of ARC fame), Xavier, Justin, Geoff and myself making the rounds and reppin' BWB at our booth.  Come by, get a shirt, tote or just say hey!

Expect some new enhanced (ooooo!) content this weekend.

Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist

Over at www.gawker.com, flagship of superhip internet empire: Gawker Media, they've posted an obituary sure to dishearten all of us English majors and nerds: the death of the semicolon.

Over at The Guardian they have posted a fabulous set of contrasting viewpoints
on the topic:

"I love a good semicolon, but this sounds like one of those Literature is Dead! Stories that The New York Times likes to run," he says. "I've never heard from a reader confused by one of my semicolons, and I don't remember ever throwing a book aside for being semicolon-free."

The late Kurt Vonnegut, meanwhile, takes the subtle approach and compares semicolons to cross-dressing she-males: "If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons," he has cautioned. "They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."

Where do you stand on the topic?