The School of Nursing is getting a head start on its spring cleaning.
Nursing faculty and staff have begun clearing out their offices in preparation for this summer's planned renovations to the Nursing Education Building.
And as for all the old textbooks, journals and assorted documents that will invariably turn up, there'll be a better place for them than the trash bin.
The Nursing Book Drive Project - officially launched on Monday - will collect any useful but unneeded educational materials and donate them to nursing schools in developing countries around the world.
All kinds of nursing books and resources - from disease prevention to public health - will be collected, Assistant Dean for Global Health Affairs Marjorie Muecke said.
Organized by Nursing's Global Health Affairs Office, the project will be run by Muecke in conjunction with administrative coordinator Erika Powell.
"We want to send something down that is useful and will help increase the capacity of our colleagues abroad," she said.
This means that the books and other materials collected must have been recently published and in good to relatively new condition, Powell added.
Once the books are collected, Muecke and Powell will distribute them to nursing schools in other countries.
Because the two are still in the collecting phase, they do not have finalized plans regarding where else the books will go - but Guyana, they said, is definitely a priority.
"Guyana is one of the poorest countries in the world, and they have a very difficult time retaining nurses once they graduate from their nursing schools." Muecke said.
Nursing professor William McCool added that midwifery schools in Guyana are very outdated in terms of their access to educational materials.
He said these schools don't have Internet access, and the books they have are generally 15 to 20 years old.
Along with Guyana, the Asian continent will be another destination for these books because independent organizations - such as Bridge to Asia and Books for Asia - already have well-established book distribution systems.
"Whatever we can do to improve the infrastructure of nursing education and nursing practice abroad is important to us because that will help stop the brain drain of nurses that are so vitally needed abroad." Muecke said.
Nursing professor Kate McHugh pointed out the perks of having this type of charity program in the Nursing School.
"In the health field, the material learned is very focused," she said, as opposed to history- and philosophy-based books that are "more culturally driven" and therefore would be less applicable to schools overseas.
The books will be collected throughout the rest of the semester at the Global Health Affairs Office.
