You Can Help Finish Bob's Job!

The Spring 2007 Casa Library Fund Drive

(Say you want to Finish Bob's Job!)

Jump to Itemized Library Fund Wish List

To begin our Spring 2007 fundraising, we have decided to name our first drive after Bob Byars, a local hero who has been working tirelessly over the break to paint the library from ceiling to floor, generously donating all the paint and his labor. Bob has also decided that he will donate funds toward a new window for the library--a wooden one to match the old one. The current window is so old and broken it lets in water, weather and unwanted noise, and you can't open it or the whole thing would fall out. Bob will install the new window in a few weeks after it's ordered. Bob has spent his own holiday time carefully and lovingly giving the library a much needed face lift, finally leaving the library with a refreshed feeling for the fresh new year. We want to be able to complete the work he has started, and continue improving the library we love to make it the most inspiring, comfortable, and safe space for the community to use as they have enjoyed for three years. You can help finish Bob's job...

Casa Libre has a goal to raise $4,000 for the library this spring. This $4,000 will go toward new custom built bench seating along the walls to accommodate more audience members for readings, create more storage and make the library less cluttered and more spacious; bathroom and kitchen repairs; a new expandable conference table that will accommodate up to twelve students (the most expensive item on the list); new (better) lighting; and of course new dictionaries, updated reference books, writer's market directories, and updated journal subscriptions.

That means if 20 people donated $200 we'd have it! Or 40 folks donated $100! It isn't that much. And, you may decide you just want to donate directly for one item or another, in which case, visit this itemized list of the various parts of the library project budget.

Jump to Itemized Library Project Wish List

Casa Libre lends its library to local non-profit groups for board meetings, staff meetings, classes and workshops, and many readings. There is usually an event scheduled in our library at least four nights each week during the academic year, and often more. Here's an excellent example below of how Casa's Library is used:

Casa Libre is hosting Kore Press's Grrrls Literary Activism Project! This semester Casa Libre will host an exciting 18-week, after-school workshop for girls who write. This is an opportunity for young women to develop their own artistic voices and learn how to use that voice in the social/public sphere. These young women, in community with their peers, will discover the ways in which literature can elicit change in the reader, writer, and general public. 

Two concurrent sessions will run this spring, each meeting once weekly January-May: Tuesdays 3:30-5 p.m. or Wednesdays 2:30-4 p.m.  Each student will pick one session to attend.  The class will run from January 16^th/17^th through May 15^th/16^th.In this three-phase workshop, led by professional writers, young women will

a) read and discuss provocative work by other women writers and identify issues they feel are important to their lives, b) contribute to the conversations on these issues through poetry or prose of their own, and, c) bring their ideas to the public in a final, socially-relevant, creative project.  At the culmination of the project, each student will present her own piece of activist literature, the form of which may be anything from a sound recording to a slam performance to a broadside posted in a public space.

Topics may include: public vs. private expression, literature and art as activism, the significance of form and audience, printing and visual communication. Participants will play an active role in determining the course of the workshop.  Students will also do some out-of-class writing/blogging. 

The workshop will be for young women from Tucson and City high schools.  Ten students from each school—and perhaps more— will be chosen according to an application process. There is no cost to the students.

The first WIP reading is scheduled for Friday, January 16, from 7 to 10 p.m. See the full schedule here. Three U of A MFA Creative Writing students are featured at each reading. Refreshments served. Outside and inside seating. Free and Open to the public. Where? In the library of course!

$4,000 Library Project Itemized:
What's needed to Finish Bob's Job! (Spring 2007)

1. The Conference Table: $1,723.00 with shipping and set up.
Here is the plane on which Casa's many minds meet. Our current table is only large enough to seat 8 folks comfortably. The more the library is used for classes and board meetings, the more room at the table we need. So, we began browsing online and through used and antique furniture stores to seek out the best table that would suit the unique needs of Casa's library users. This table is the first and only we've found that can be small enough to seat six or expand to seat 12 students or meeting attendees. It is also a simple style, made of wood to match the historic atmosphere, and has a unique user friendly design. Click on this link to view table at NapaStyle.

2. Library bench seating: $600 (materials) built by staff and volunteers
Bye bye cluttered furnishings. We need to open up the space for reading audiences and create more comfortable and roomy seating for library visitors. These benches will have seats that lift up to reveal storage we can store all the banquet and event supply items that now clutter the library's kitchen and bathroom. The cushions will have to be custom made by Tucson Foam & Fabric on Fourth Avenue. We will furnish the labor and build the benches with the help of Casa volunteers.

3.Books: $500 (updated reference/directories & journals)
Writer's Market, Poet's Market, Fiction Market, Sci-Fi Market, Non-Fiction Market, CLMP Directory (Council of Literary Magazines and Presses), Contemporary Fiction, Poetry and Non-fiction Journals, Updated Atlas, AWP Directory (Associated Writing Programs), Subscriptions to AWP, Poets and Writers, Harpers, New York Times Book Review; other books not listed include specialty dictionaries.

4. New library window: $250 (materials)
- installation & rest of $ donated by Bob Byars

5. Lighting: $300 (materials) - installation by staff or volunteer
The library needs better lighting! Currently, we have a couple of thrift store lamps and an old fan light that only has one speed on it. We would like to get proper lighting above the conference table, and a fan that works properly as well, to keep the air circulating (heat in the winter pulled down from the ceiling, air in the summer pushed around). Here are some options we've been looking at: Ashland fan/light fixture for room center over table. Other ceiling lights to illuminate books shelves and table.

6. Large area rug for under table to protect carpets: :$150
We get the library carpet professionally cleaned twice each year, to remove traffic dirt, but all year round folks are apt to spill coffee/tea or drinks and the area directly under the conference table gets pretty dirty. A large area rug would protect the carpets from accidents and heavy foot traffic, helping to make our library carpet last years longer.

7. Library kitchen & bathroom repairs & repainting: $400 (materials & labor)
Attached to the library is a bathroom and a kitchen that get constant use by our library visitors. The plumbing in the kitchen leaks, and the toilet runs--both need new plumbing and fixtures (and a plumber). The entire bathroom and kitchen need painting. New rugs for the floor (haven't been replaced since we opened the library and since the 2005 flood). Need storage cabinets to organize space and unclutter.