"Ten Tons of Tomes"

The container project is a go. Jason, the Peace Corps volunteer at Biblioteca Judeteana “Duiliu Zamfirescu” Focsani is helping to organize the project from their side of the pond.

(The photos to the right are examples of what I will be doing.)

It's the responsibility of those who will most benefit from the project to raise the money to pay for the transportation costs. With the import taxes/fees, shipping costs and incidental expenses - said incidental expenses fronted by yours truly, now a pensioner - it will probably amount to $4000 for a 20 ft. shipping container.

I finally found warehouse space through a local Greek Orthodox Church and I can move on moving accumulated books, as well as additional ones there. The big pain is my pick-up will only haul about 600 lbs. maximum and the warehouse is a 50 mile round trip. I need to find a small trailer nearby that I can borrow from time to time. So far I've made 4 trips with another planned for tomorrow.

In addition to the accumulated books I've been storing, I've found 2 used book stores that are enthusiastically allowing me to raid their basements and a publishing insider who will be provider a pile of "advance copies" from the last couple years.

The newspaper article drew some small book donations and perhaps 2 or 3 offers to host small book drives. I have requests in to other used bookstores to cull unsold stuff.

I'm also planning a trip to Chicago at the beginning of March to send off another batch of books towards the primary project of books for the other PCVs throughout Romania.