MAALL Book to Action

MAALL Book to Action is a service project that brings MAALL together to read a common title and benefit the community in which the Annual Meeting is hosted by providing books to those who need them.

This year's book is Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change by Ben Austen, and books purchased during the charity book drive will be collected for the Juvenile & Adult Detention Centers in Topeka by Round Table Bookstore. Check out the 2026 Book to Action page for more information.

History

MAALL was inspired to begin the Book to Action program in 2014 by our MAALL Annual Meeting keynote speaker, Steve Bogira. When asked what law librarians can do to help those in prison situations, Mr. Bogira suggested that we work on providing reading material for the incarcerated. Cindy Bassett announced the first Book to Action project in her Letter from the President in the September 2015 MAALL Markings (pages 7-8). In 2019, Gail Wechsler, Library Director at the Law Library Association of St. Louis, joined Cindy as co-coordinator of Book to Action. At Gail's suggestion, the book drive began working with local, independent book stores in the host city.

In 2023, Cindy Bassett stepped down as co-coordinator in order to fulfill her new responsibilities as Library Director of the University of Missouri-Columbia Law Library. Matt Timko, Academic Technologies and Outreach Services Librarian and Associate Professor at Northern Illinois University College of Law, became the new co-coordinator. Also in 2023, Cindy Bassett and Gail Wechsler were recognized for their work on the Book to Action project as recipients of the inaugural MAALL Service Award.  

• 2015: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson; donated books to the Missouri Department of Corrections.
• 2016: This Book is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson; donated books to Positive Tomorrows.
  
• 2017: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond; donated books to Literacy Services of Wisconsin.
  
• 2018: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander; donated books to Project Stand.
• 2019: They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement by Wesley Lowery; donated books to Caring for Kids.
• 2020: Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough; donated books to Project Home Indy.
• 2021: One Person, No Vote by Carol Anderson; donated books to Family Development Services, a Head Start Organization.
• 2022: Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor's Fight for Fairness by Laura Coates; donated 84 books to United Way of Vermillion, South Dakota (for recipients of the food bank, diaper bank and weekend backpack program).
• 2023: Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of our Nation by Linda Villarosa; donated 63 books to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Iowa (Gregory & Suzie Glazer Burt location on the Drake campus); recipients enjoying their books pictured below.

• 2024: Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education, by Stephanie Land; donated 69 books to Head Start of Lincoln, run through the Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders Counties. Photos below show MAALL member Richard Leiter with Danielle Eby from Elleinad Books to pick up the donated books and with Sam Bates in the lobby of Community Action to deliver the donations.