BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - Beginning Friday (Feb. 1), Illinois Wesleyan students and community members are invited to drop off any books or new or gently-used sporting goods items at the Shirk Center as part of a program sponsored by the Illinois Wesleyan Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and IWU Athletic Department.

The drive will continue throughout the month of February and the items will be sorted by SAAC members and donated to a number of local organizations.

As part of a sociology class (Action Research Seminar) that is helping to revitalize the west side of Bloomington, Illinois Wesleyan senior women's basketball players Melissa Gardner and Michelle Bilek recently created a program called "Free Little Libraries", providing residents with the opportunity to borrow books from portable libraries. The course is taught by Deborah Halperin, who is the coordinator of the campus's Action Research Center.

The four libraries, constructed with the help of IWU political science professor Greg Shaw, will be placed in front of social service agencies and residents' houses. The plan for the two-level libraries is to have children's books on one level and books for adults on the other.

"The idea is that anyone can take books out of the library and people are free to return the books, pass them along, or keep the books," said Gardner and Bilek. "But to make the project successful, we need more books since the libraries must constantly be restocked with books after some are taken.

"We hope that the little libraries will ignite imagination and enhance a desire to learn in the residents of the west side."