Send a book, build democracy

Christopher Hitchens writes about a need for English-language technical (and other) books at the American University of Iraq in Slate.com:

I recently received a progress report from Sulaymaniya from Thomas Cushman, who is a professor in the sociology department at Wellesley College and the founding editor of the Journal of Human Rights. He tells me that the American University attaches very special importance to the establishment of a library in English. An initiative has been set up to furnish the campus with the most up-to-date books that can be provided.

As Cushman writes:

What I did was ask colleagues to donate books, which they did in good numbers. We sent thirty cartons of first-rate books, especially on global affairs, history and literature and they are housed in the new library. ... The university is especially in need of technical books, social science books, software even. ... Nathan Musselman, the Prefect of the University who is teaching a class, wrote to me thrilled to tell me that the students were now writing their term papers in English and using many of these books as their main sources for research. He is greatly desirous of receiving more, now that the initial library is set up. ... So the idea is to get people to donate in a more micro way; to send one or two new, current and important books (perhaps they have review copies, extra copies, etc) to the new library of the University. All of these small polyps could yield a substantial coral reef of knowledge for the new generation of students there.

So here's what to do. Have a look at the university's Web site. Get some decent volumes together, pass the word to your friends and co-workers to do the same, and send them off to:

Nathan Musselman
Building No. 7, Street 10
Quarter 410 Ablakh Area
Sulaimani, Iraq
(+964) (0)770-461-5099

It's important to include the number at the end. [From Send a book, build democracy. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine]

This is an amazing opportunity to help shape a nation's technology. Students can only read books that are available to them, so if you're of a particular religious persuasion, start sending them those Ruby or C# or Cobol (if that's your thing) texts. In addition to looking through my library for relevant books I don't use any more, I'm ordering Restful Web Services, Secure Coding: Principals and Practices, and a couple of others.