I tried to make a nice donation to the Allegany College Library. A donation of hardcover books and CDs because I believe in trying to place these sources in libraries so people who cannot afford to purchase them have free access to them. I sent a nice list and letter to Bob Baldwin at AC offering a donation as I have to several libraries, including Frostburg State University library. I received the following email response, which I found to be quite offensive. I find it remarkable someone would phrase a response like this. It reeks of ignorance and lack of respect to me. I give you the email as well as my response. All I can say is I certainly hope other people who supposedly speak on behalf of the college speak in a more respectful manner when someone contacts them about a donation or for any other reason.

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Mr. Bittinger,

                When I returned from vacation I found your offer of donations on my desk.  Thank you for your interest in the Allegany College of Maryland Library.   We are a small community college and as such we focus our collection development on materials to support our curriculum.   We have limited shelf space and no need for Scientology materials, so I will decline your offer of the donation.   We do not have a religion department and do not need materials supporting a particular religious denomination or viewpoint.

                Over the last 20 years on several instances your church headquarters organization has sent us unsolicited boxes of books and I have thrown the books away and asked them not to send any more.   In the last two years I have had two phone conversations with some very persistent and disagreeable people asking that I accept Scientology gift books.  When I declined they demanded a list of reasons why I would not accept the Scientology books.   I finally had to hang up on them when it became clear that there was not a polite way to end the conversation.

 

Bob Baldwin

Director of Learning Resources

Donald L. Alexander Library

Allegany College of Maryland

12401 Willowbrook Road, SE

Cumberland, MD  21502

301-784-5268

rbaldwin@allegany.edu

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Mr. Baldwin,

Since I did not get to speak with you personally, I left you a message and will email you this message. A simple "No Thank You" would have been sufficient and I would have understood. You could have kept your rather unfortunate experiences to yourself seeing as how I was not a part of those experiences and you and I do not personally know each other. I find your response to me to be in fact the rudest response I have received from anyone I have offered a donation. Why you felt the need to phrase your response in such an ignorant way is beyond me when I am a nice guy trying to do my best to provide sources for people who cannot afford to buy these books and materials themselves. You know when you wrote "Over the last 20 years on several instances your church headquarters organization has sent us unsolicited boxes of books and I have thrown the books away and asked them not to send any more." you meant to be insulting and degrading to me. There was no need at all to say such a thing to me. As I said, a simple "No Thank You" would have been sufficient. Such a shame.

Sincerely,

Frank E. Bittinger

The sets of books Mr. Baldwin so cavalierly admits to throwing away cost generous donor $545 to purchase for the libraries of their choice. He admits in writing to have thrown them away instead of simply asking for a return label so they could have been donated to a library willing to accept them. My question: How much of generous donors' money has been wasted because Mr. Baldwin has simply chosen to throw away donated materials instead of merely saying "No Thank You"? It is a shame and I seriously doubt this is the image the college wishes to portray to the community and its donors. I know my donation has a value of $4,360.

Whether or not one agrees with the subject, library patrons and students have the right to be able to have access to the information. I donate these materials to libraries because I know I would have liked having access to them when I could not afford to purchase them for myself.

I called and left a message for the President of the college, saying I would like to discuss the disrespectful nature of Mr. Baldwin's email and because I feel I am owed a handwritten apology.

This story has made its way around the internet since this afternoon and I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of support I've received. I will keep you updated.