[Chat] Book Thing article

Emil Volcheck volcheck at acm.org
Sun Aug 29 17:27:40 EDT 2004


Hello, folks,

Here's a link to an article about the Book Thing,
written by a volunteer named Amy:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/8/25/173135/586

Kuro5hin is a website for news and stories.  Its byline is
"Technology and culture, from the trenches".

The introductory paragraph is below.

Kathleen and I just donated two boxes of books last
weekend to the Book Thing.  If you have books to
donate, now's a good time because the Baltimore
Book Festival is coming up the weekend of 
September 18th-19th, and that will be a good time for
them to hand out a lot of books.


--Emil

---
I spend anywhere from three to eight hours every week sweating along
with a motley crew of local misfits, shelving, sorting, and hauling
ton after ton of written matter in a rowhouse basement in
Baltimore. We have no heat nor air conditioning, but still, every
week, we come and work. Volunteer night is Wednesday, but many of us
also work on the weekends, when we're open to the public. There are
times when we're freezing and we have to wear coats and gloves inside,
making handling books somewhat tricky; other times, we're all soaked
with sweat, since it's 90 degrees out and the basement is thick with
bodies. One learns to forget about personal space when working at The
Book Thing, since you can scarcely breathe without bumping into
someone, and we are all so accustomed to having to scrape by each
other that most of us no longer bother to say "excuse me" unless some
particularly dramatic brushing occurs.

(skipping)

My name is Amy. I am a 20-year-old girl trying to make it in Baltimore
City. I am a bibliophile. And I need your help.



-- 
Emil Volcheck
volcheck at acm.org
http://acm.org/~volcheck




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