“At the ominous word ‘liberality’, Scrooge frowned, and
shook his head, and handed the credentials back.” — A Christmas Carol

On Black Friday last year, I posted the many ways you could donate to The Library. The ways haven’t changed, though the various wishlists have had additions of subtractions. I mentioned in another post that after several years of having it on the wishlist, we were the lucky recipients of a lap top. We also had several individuals step forward in the past year to adopt books (we showed off the re-furbished History of Insurance in Philadelphia at this week’s Annual Meeting). In case you wanted to donate to a charity as you shopped on amazon, or you wanted to make sure to get a donation in to one of your favorite charities before the end of the year, we thought we’d publish the three main ways to donate in one easy to find place!

The Annual Fund is where general monetary donations throughout the year go. The money is spent on up-keep of the library as well as focusing on one or two projects for the year. Companies and individuals who donate to the annual fund get their name published in our newsletter (we’re a non-profit so your donation may also be eligible for a tax deduction — we’re not tax experts though). This year, a portion of the money went toward cleaning the library and putting finishing touches on rooms that had been damaged in the flood. If you take any classes from the library, you’ll notice the basement classrooms have been spruced up!

Another way of supporting the library and its collection is through the “Adopt A Book Program” which provides for preservation of our historical publications and documents. The money donated goes toward a specific item –you can read some background about the books and look at them online in their tattered state to pick which one you want to adopt. We make sure a personalized book plate is put in the front of books, when requested, so users know whose generosity ensured future use of the material. The book plate can be donated in honor of someone in case you want to buy it as a gift for someone else. Your recipient can come into the library any time they want and admire the book-binder’s handiwork and their name emblazoned on the inside cover.

Finally, the library has an Amazon Wishlist. While you’re completing your other shopping on amazon, you can click over and skim the list. If anything catches your fancy, you can simply add it to your cart with the rest of your purchase and Amazon should know to send it to us. You’ll notice there are items on the list for general office upkeep. We’re currently using the 2004 version of Quicken and would love to upgrade to a more recent version. As you would expect, the rest of the list is filled out with books. Many of these books have been requested by patrons or are for very specialized areas of insurance interest but aren’t in our budget. If you find something that falls within your particular area of interest, we’d love it if you’d donate it to our library so we could share it with many more people.

We are very grateful for all the ways in which our membership supports us, without your generosity we would not be able to offer the services we do!