Ask Lisa Cammett, BC ’78, how her crusade to rescue unwanted books on the Morningside campus has evolved over the past three years. She’ll quickly reply that her attitude all along has been that “paper sticks to paper – that somebody was going to join me, but I had to start the effort in order for momentum to be gained.”

Lisa A. Cammett

Since 1999 Cammett has been administrative assistant to the adjunct faculty at the School of Social Work . The School’s move from McVickar Hall to its new building on Amsterdam Avenue in 2004 became the catalyst for her efforts, as she saw faculty and staff members divest themselves of their unused or unwanted books – in many instances into the trash.

Three years later, individuals and institutions close to Columbia’s gates on Morningside Heights and in other parts of the world are beneficiaries of Cammett’s book rescue and reuse project. Perhaps more important, the Morningside community has itself become increasingly aware, she says, that “material things we take for granted are precious elsewhere.”

“By 2005,” she says, “the amount I took from the garbage shifted proportionately. Nobody believed it at first, but by 2006 most of the books came directly from the community – not from the garbage.”

That first year – 2004 – Cammett says she rifled through the trash where she found high-quality, classic books in good condition, boxed them and gave them to booksellers along Broadway. When they couldn’t take any more, she took home 25 crates of leftovers, then decided to go to the Low Library steps on Labor Day and give the books away.

That year she also sent eight cartons of books to Maherere University in Uganda . “I busted my credit card, but I simply wasn’t going to see them thrown away,” she says. Referring to the hefty mailing costs, she says “I’ve lost track of how much money I’ve spent.”

Since then, Cammett has organized annual Labor Day giveaways at which she’s also solicited signatures on a petition calling for increased efforts at reuse of office furniture, supplies and, of course, books. The petition also suggests an on-campus location where books and journals can be dropped off, then reused elsewhere in the world.

It was in the course of setting up this year’s giveaway in a conversation with Honey Fishman, Executive Director, Business Services, that Cammett learned about Clean + Go Green. The project, held on campus for three days each August, encourages faculty, staff and administration to contribute their unwanted office items, especially furniture and electronics, for recycling and reuse. Cammett asked that books be specifically mentioned on the Clean + Go Green promotional materials.

Through collaboration among Fishman, Facilities and Nilda Mesa, Director of Environmental Stewardship, a drop-off area specifically for books was added to the Clean + Go Green program.

Helen Bielak, Manager, Surplus Reuse Program, in the Department of Environmental Stewardship, and an organizer of Clean + Go Green, describes working with Cammett: “She was pleased as punch with the three huge bins of books that were collected, sorting and boxing them in a not-so-pleasant part of the Grove on a 90-degree, 100 percent humidity day.”

Cammett estimates she’s rescued 10,000 books in the last three years, including 3,000 this year alone.

“The lady loves her books,” Bielak says. “And I was enlightened and educated – this was something I’d never really thought about. Even books clearly out of date have information that’s still useful in other places around the world.”

Cammett held the Labor Day giveaway and petition drive at 116^th and Morningside this year, moving the books from Columbia to her Harlem apartment to the giveaway and back in a truck she rented for $600.

With the books and journals that were left – about 50 cartons, she says she ”spent the entire weekend making my arms strong and my back strained lifting heavy, heavy bound volumes from our libraries into sturdy boxes as I sorted them. Nature, Scientific American, Ecology and Science magazines will go to a middle school in China and
a new library in Nigeria . The more technical biological journals like "Nucleic Acids Research" and "Febs" (1980's, 1990's) will go to a university in China as soon as I get a good address from Professor Ada Mui, who is here and sent some books to China in 2004 when we leftMcVickar.

“While I lifted and grunted and joyously grouped all my rescued treasure, I thought about all the work I've done for the last three years on this issue and knowing that some light is
finally being shed on the problem, that my work is finally truly paying off because the administration is listening,” she says.

Todd Bristol, Assistant Dean, Administration and Finance, at the School of Social Work , says that “the reality with academic books and the publishing industry is that there are very often new editions, making previous versions obsolete for the classroom.”

Although some books may be outdated or superseded with new editions, he says, there are still homes for them overseas, where the major concern is not which edition they have. Bristol says Cammett’s commitment has increased awareness in the school to find a second life for these books.

In November the Columbia community will see a new recycling center in Lerner Hall. One of its containers will be a book drop, thanks in no small measure to what Bristol describes as Cammett’s “noble passion” for finding successive lives for books.