By Dara Blanchette
One small Orem company may not be the largest resource of free books, but it hopes to be there within three months, the founders say.
World Wide Book Drive is a company that uses direct soliciting for old books, new books and even phone books. Company employees then pick up the books, categorize them and catalog them into their online system, said John Keller, a founder of the company. A teacher or organization can then search the online database for a specific book or book topic and have the book sent to them.
The first World Wide Book Drive store opened barely a month ago and is located at 104 N. 1200 West in Orem. The store sees about 20 customers a day and the books sold there range in price from $1 to $4, Keller said. He said he is happy that some of the books are put back into the community.
World Wide Book Drive was created in October 2005 when Keller and David Kasteler, both recent BYU graduates with a large number of college books, realized that many donated books were being discarded or recycled instead of being used.
'There was a need in the market for a company with the ability to catalog books and get them where they are needed,' Keller said.
The company is a couple months away from being able to catalog any book that comes to them, Keller said.
World Wide Book Drive is not a non-profit organization because the company did not want to depend on donations, Keller said. But the company does work closely with non-profit organizations, including Eagle Condor Humanitarian and the Life Skills Center in Orem.
The partnership with Eagle Condor Humanitarian, a humanitarian group that provides programs that empower people in South America, allows the company to help with literacy programs and benefits other organizations.
Another partnership is with Orem''s Life Skills Center, which provides training and income for people with severe disabilities. The partnership gives the Life Skills Center a new job for its participants, who manually separate the binding and glue from the paper in hardbound books so the books can be recycled back into paper. This allows World Wide Book Drive to be the only company in Utah that can recycle hardback books back into paper.
'The mission is to promote global literacy and improve the environment through recycling,' said David Kasteler, the company''s co-founder.
The company is working on cataloging books so schools and other organizations can find books that benefit them and so good books don''t go to waste for lack of space or effort to sort them, Kasteler said.
'Truckloads of books are not sorted and ... if the books are not categorized they are not used,' Kasteler said. A large majority of books that are donated end up just sitting there or being mulched or thrown into the ocean, he said.
'Organizations need certain books ... order them, and we pack them and ship them exactly the books they need,' Kasteler said. He said he traveled to 12 countries last year, and World Wide Book Drive is working on helping charter schools in both Ukraine and South Africa.
One source of book donations for World Wide Book Drive is the Provo City Library. Debbie Hendrickson is on the Friends of the Provo City Library Board that helps to fund programs that are not in the library budget.
One way they raise funds is to collect book donations and then sell them, she said. The donations always exceed the storage space they have available for the books, so the Library Board recently formed a partnership with World Wide Book Drive, Hendrickson said. The books that they do not have space for are given to the company, which picks the books up and takes them away.
'It was a great service to us,' Hendrickson said.
Another large donor to World Wide Book Drive is Joan Gled, a retired psychologist who donated more than 3,000 books from her personal library when she moved from California to Utah.
'They have a good cause they are working on and I was happy to donate books,' she said.
Those who want to donate to World Wide Book Drive can do so through the company Web site: worldwidebookdrive.org or can drop off books at the store at 104 N. 1200 West.