News-Letter

Media Credit: Angeli Bueno Baltimorean Mary Jones takes a look through the free merchandise at the Thing.

Media Credit: Angeli Bueno Baltimore residents enjoy browsing the Book Thing's free literary merchandise.

Each semester Hopkins students employ myriad methods for finding required textbooks. The laziest take the easiest route and head to the bookstore, while others try to save cash by searching for bargains online. But there is a little-known third option that could set you up with the books you need for free. That's right - free books, and they're available just a few blocks south of campus at the Book Thing of Baltimore, Inc.

The goal of the Book Thing is simple: "To put unwanted books into the hands of those who want them," says the group's Web site, http://www.bookthing.org. Its warehouse at 3001 Vineyard Lane, open only on weekends, is filled with seemingly endless rows of books and magazines, free to anyone who walks in the door.

The books come from donations by various organizations and countless individuals looking to clean out their basements. The resulting stock includes materials from an array of genres: There are standard fiction, self-help and history sections, and more obscure categories like "Judaica, Buddhism, Other Religions, Occult and New Age."

Only an ardent book-lover could conceive of building a place like this, and that's exactly what the Book Thing's owner, Russell Wattenberg, is.

"I couldn't walk by a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird for 10 cents and not buy it, whether I had four copies or not," he said.

Wattenberg has long been a collector of books. He first started giving them away when he worked as the manager of a bar that served a regular group of schoolteachers. The teachers complained about not having enough books for their students, and one fateful day, Wattenberg happened to have a load of books he'd picked up at a thrift store in his car.

"I let the teachers go through the back of my van and take whatever they wanted," he said.

It didn't take long for the operation to begin growing. "I started … taking my tip money from the week and using it to pick up books," he began. "Other people started hearing about what I was doing so they started bringing me books they didn't want anymore … and it just kind of grew and grew."

More specifically, it grew from a few books exchanged among a group of teachers to giving away 30,000 books a week to people from all of Baltimore. In November 1999, Wattenberg left the bar business to pursue literary philanthropy full-time. Back then, the Book Thing operated out of a rowhouse basement, but since April 2005, it's been at its warehouse location just off of 30th St.

With so many people coming in every weekend and no sales being made, managing the Book Thing is a unique challenge compared to running other businesses. A portion of the funding comes from donations and some is from renting books as props to movies and TV shows being filmed in the area (all of the books on HBO's The Wire are Book Thing rentals). But ironically, according to Wattenberg, the largest percentage of income is from sales.

"About one-quarter of one percent of the books that are donated we sell," he said. Recently, he received well over $1,000 for "an 1890's book on gastric juices … [which] allows me to give away 20,000 children's books," a trade he feels is well-justified.

The droves of locals who peruse the Book Thing's shelves each weekend would surely agree. The nondescript warehouse in a tiny corner of Baltimore attracts all kinds: city parents bring their children, teachers collect hundreds of books at a time for their students and some people just want something to read. As for Hopkins students, they're just glad for the chance to save some money.

"I think it's particularly good for us Hopkins students because we're broke and it's a great place to pick up free books," said junior Erin Donohue, who was enjoying her first visit to the Book Thing on Sunday. "I wish I had known about it sooner because I could have weaseled out of paying for a few textbooks."

Wattenberg has noticed some Hopkins professors bringing books from the offices in Gilman Hall, which is soon to be vacated for renovations. "I'll get a professor dropping of the last 20 years' worth of stuff from their office, throw it on the shelves, and one of their students will pick it up," he said.

Given its proximity to campus, it's not surprising that Hopkins students are among the volunteers who help to keep the shelves full. Besides Wattenberg, the staff consists entirely of community members. They are of varying backgrounds, but according to veteran volunteer Yarrow Morgan, who heard about the Book Thing from a neighbor, they all share one trait.

"Everyone loves books," she said. "It's a large, diverse group of people and what we share is a love of books."

Hopkins senior Viktoriya London is one such book-loving volunteer who first visited the Book Thing in search for a better fiction selection than what the MSE Library had to offer. After ending up with sore muscles from carrying home all the gems she found, London wanted to contribute to the operation.

"I contacted … Russell and asked if I could volunteer there with my sorority sisters [from the multi-cultural sorority Delta Xi Phi]," she said.

Other Hopkins volunteers include graduate students, students who are on campus during the summer and service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega.

Though Wattenberg is exceedingly grateful for any and all help he receives, he admitted it can be frustrating when he has volunteers "who make some interesting shelving choices." For example, "one Hopkins kid insisted that Romeo and Juliet should go with the romance novels," he revealed, adding that this opinionated student happened to be an engineering major.

Cataloging disputes aside, the volunteers at the Book Thing are passionate about reading, and they share Wattenberg's ambition of making books available to whoever needs them.

"I think it's the best thing about Baltimore," Morgan exclaimed. "Free books for the world!"

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