End-of-semester book collections support MIM's Books for 
Prisoners program

This year as the semester ended at colleges and universities 
MIM led book drives on campuses to collect books and money 
from students for our Books for Prisoners program. As with 
book collection efforts in past years, this proved to be an 
effective way to educate people and build support for our 
program. At UC Berkeley MIM supporters and Studies for the 
Liberation of Aztlán and Latin America (SLALA) comrades 
asked students to donate their books to MIM's BfP rather 
than sell them back to the bookstore. Comrades were on 
campus during the two weeks before the book drive collecting 
signatures on postcards protesting censorship in prisons. 
They encouraged all who talked to them to also donate their 
books during our book collection drive. Some people who 
stopped to sign postcards volunteered to help with the book 
drive. During the collection drive, comrades handed out 
quarter-sheet flyers explaining MIM's Books for Prisoners 
program with contact information. One comrade made up a nice 
poster which drew passers-by into conversation about the 
Books for Prisoners program. People who stopped to talk were 
also offered a copy of MIM Notes to read more about our 
prison and general revolutionary organizing. Comrades 
learned that at Berkeley most students do not sell their 
books back until the last two  days of finals, information 
that will save them unproductive hours next year. During the 
peak days of book buy-back they were only able to staff the 
collection box for about five hours, but in this time they 
collected many books and gained a number of supporters. One 
persyn came to help out with collecting for several hours 
one day after seeing comrades out there the day before. 
Boston University's Friends of the Revolutionary Anti-
Imperialist League (FORAIL) also collected donations the 
last four days of finals outside of BU's bookstore. FORAIL 
hung up a poster listing at the bottom the types of books we 
were looking for due to past experience where many students 
just threw in books as they walk by. The new, more explicit 
sign gave us more opportunities to explain to students that 
MIM's program is geared towards political education and 
organizing. FORAIL also added to the poster that we accept 
(and need) money for postage, which brought in some cash 
donations. In fact, most of the books collected during book 
drives at universities are not appropriate for MIM's Books 
for Prisoners program. This program focuses on political 
education, so most of the books we send in are explicitly 
political. Many of the students have textbooks from, say, 
math and science classes that they are selling back. But MIM 
gladly accepts these books as donations to our program, 
explaining to the students that we can sell them to finance 
postage an mailing materials. On the Berkeley campus, in 
addition to a number of useful political books, comrades 
collected close to $100 from book sales which will be used 
to pay shipping costs for MIM's Books for Prisoner's 
program. Supporters of MIM's Books for Prisoners program are 
encouraged to contact us to get started organizing book 
collections on campuses in your city next semester. All you 
need is some time, a box, and the flyers and newspapers that 
MIM will supply.