Book donations
In 2010, The Elsevier Foundation awarded BookAid International with $120,000 for a three year grant to primary care health workers and consumer health information users. In partnership with the Kenya National Library Service network and Healthlink Worldwide, the project will develop the skills of 30 library staff across 15 key public libraries. It will repackage and communicate critical content from medical books to two underserved Kenyan communities: healthcare providers and users.
Colin McCullough, Sabre’s Book Program Manager gives Ylann Schemm from Elsevier’s Global Communications team a tour of the Sabre warehouse in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Behind them are the Elsevier books which have been sorted and are ready to fill orders from developing country libraries.
The US based book donation program, Sabre Foundation was founded in 1986 and has delivered nine million books to more than 80 countries. Sabre focuses its efforts on sub-Saharan Africa, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iraq, Lebanon, Vietnam, Palestine and Vietnam. Like BookAid, Sabre is known for the demand-driven way in which they make new books available to libraries, universities, hospitals, and other end-users. Sabre’s network of non-profit partner organizations selects books from inventory lists, receive ocean freight containers and distribute the materials country-wide.
Elsevier is one of Sabre’s major donors. In late 2004, we began donating books to Sabre, mostly in the form of “hurts” or “returns”. To date, the total number of books and other educational materials has reached 300,000. In 2010, 30,000 science, technology and medical books were donated by Elsevier.
Nurses in Kenya using an ICN Mobile Library
International Council of Nurses Mobile Library: Launched in 2001, the ICN/MSD (Merck Sharp & Dohme) Mobile Library program delivers up-to-date health information to nursing professionals working in remote areas of developing countries. Each library is housed in a transportable trunk resilient to moisture, insects and hard knocks and contains around 80 titles.
Since its founding, Elsevier has provided more than 250 Mobile Libraries to nurses in 17 countries, providing about 40 titles at highly discounted prices. Elsevier’s Rushden warehouse handles the packing and shipping to ensure safe arrival.
For their efforts, Elsevier has been chosen as the 2009 recipient of the ICN Partnership in Development Award which recognizes organizations that demonstrate “outstanding leadership and investment in nursing and health care capcity building, brining benefit to the health of populations.
In February 2010 Elsevier and RECares committed $15,000, deeply discounted Masson books and logistical expertise to ICN Supporting Nurses and Nursing in Haiti Fund to aid the post-earthquake recovery period through tailored French-language Nursing Mobile libraries with books on mental health, post-disaster response, prevailing infectious diseases and reinitiating interrupted treatment for HIV and tuberculosis.