Treasures on your bookshelves!

Recently while spending time standing in various supermarket checkout lines, I found myself skimming some of the covers of the publications on display. In one market, I noticed the usual tabloid fodder of stories about TomKat, Bigfoot and other assorted oft-maligned characters. On one late night shopping foray to a different market in pursuit of the elusive organic coconut extract, I noticed a slightly different mix of reading material that included fresh, new issues of Real Simple and Martha Stewart Living. On the covers of these magazines were hints about reducing clutter in our lives and organizing our spaces (life, work and otherwise). I was reminded of these cover stories on organizing for 2007 by an inquiry I received yesterday from someone interested in donating some books to the Sterling Morton Library.
The Library welcomes donations of resources relating to botany, horticulture, natural history, botanical art and the plant sciences. Honestly, we’ve received some wonderful materials for our collection from donations! After reviewing the donated items and our collection holdings and interests, we are sometimes able to add these donated books and journals to our collection. If the resource is a duplicate or does not fit within our subject interests, we make these items available to other botanical/horticultural libraries or add them to our book sale cart.
I always like to think of the act of donating resources to our Library as a way of passing forward a legacy. While you might not find a use/interest for a book, you might be surprised how welcome the item is to our collection. The legacy of the donation is that it will continue to engage and inform a future reader. So if you're thinking of organizing/decluttering your world and will be sifting through your bookshelves to pass on some of your books, please contact us!

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."

Francis Bacon