Colorado State and Barnes & Noble Team Up for Library Benefitbook Fair Sept. 25

Colorado State University and Barnes & Noble Booksellers will team up for a "novel" event all day Sept. 25 at eleven locations. The CSU Library Benefit Book Fair is a statewide flood relief effort to raise money for Colorado State’s Morgan Library, which suffered damage to an estimated 425,000 books and journals during the flood that hit campus July 28.

Eleven Barnes & Noble stores in Colorado will participate in Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, Pueblo and Grand Junction. During the day, all Colorado Barnes & Noble bookstores will donate a percentage of their day’s sales to the Colorado State library. All stores will feature Colorado State banners and other green and gold Ram spirit items. Select locations also will feature an information video featuring footage from the recent flood, special T-shirts, and Cooperative Extension and other university representatives.

Book titles from many subject areas were lost during the flood, including business, sociology, science, education, engineering, agriculture and veterinary medicine. The library also lost most of its bound journals dating through 1994, including humanities, social sciences and science technology.

"Every book and journal damaged in the flood is undergoing restoration, but it could take up to two years to get all those materials back into the library’s collection, and there is no guarantee that all of them will be salvageable," said Joel Rutstein, collection development coordinator at Morgan Library. "Our main objective is to get materials back on the shelves as quickly as possible so students and faculty have direct access to these resources. The support from businesses like Barnes & Noble gives the library a major push toward that effort."

Donations of books in subject areas lost in the flood and collections of journals that span the past 20 years are the most urgent needs, Rutstein said. People interested in donating materials may search a comprehensive list of titles at www.coalliance.org/csuflood, the home page for the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries.

Barnes & Noble store locations participating in the CSU Library Benefit Book Fair include:

  • Barnes & Noble, 1741 28th St., Boulder, (303) 444-2501;
  • Barnes & Noble, 960 S. Colorado Blvd., Denver, (303) 691-2998;
  • Barnes & Noble, 4045 S. College Ave., Fort Collins, (970) 225-3777;
  • Barnes & Noble, 9370 Sheridan Blvd., Westminster, (303) 426-7733;
  • Barnes & Noble, 8555 E. Arapahoe Rd., Greenwood Village, (303) 796-8851;
  • Barnes & Noble, 14015 E. Exposition, Aurora, (303) 366-8928;
  • Barnes & Noble, 795 Citadel Drive E., Colorado Springs, (719) 637-8282;
  • Barnes & Noble, 8136 W. Bowles Ave., Littleton, (303) 948-9565;
  • Barnes & Noble, 8374 S. Willow St., Littleton, (303) 706-9660;
  • Barnes & Noble, 4300 N. Freeway, Pueblo, (719) 542-0698;
  • Barnes & Noble, 2451 Patterson Rd., Grand Junction, (970) 243-5113.

Julie Karbula, director of development for the university libraries, said more than $20,000 has been donated to the Morgan Library Flood Relief Fund. For more information about the Barnes & Noble Event, please call Michelle Rovang at (970) 491-6432. For more information about Morgan Library flood relief efforts, call (970) 491-7530. To make a donation, send your gift to Colorado State University, P.O. Box 1870, Fort Collins, CO 80522-1870.