Booksellers Urged to Send Petitions by May 17

Booksellers should note that phase one of the Campaign for Reader Privacy (CRP) (http://www.readerprivacy.com/) petition drive will soon culminate with a CRP presentation during BookExpo America, which will be held from June 2 - 6 at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago. Booksellers should continue to collect signatures for CRP, but ABA is urging booksellers to send to ABA all signed petition forms by this Monday, May 17, so that these signatures can be counted in time to be included in the BEA presentation. (Petitions should be mailed to ABA, Restore Reader Privacy, Attn.: Oren Teicher, 828 S. Broadway, Tarrytown, NY 10591.)

"Bookseller support for this effort has been absolutely phenomenal," said Oren Teicher, ABA COO. "And while the boxes of signed petitions in my office are overflowing, I'm hoping that everyone will make an extra push to collect as many signatures as possible this weekend, so we can conclude the first phase of this with a big bang."

CRP -- a nationwide grassroots petition drive to raise awareness about the threat to the privacy of bookstore and library records posed by the USA Patriot Act -- was launched in February and is sponsored by ABA, the American Library Association, and PEN American Center.

For answers to frequently asked questions about the bookstore drive to collect customer signatures, click here.

Booksellers can order additional petition pads by calling ABA's Information Department at (800) 637-0037, ext. 1292 or 1293, or for a downloadable PDF of the petition, click here.

To help participating booksellers garner press coverage for the petition drive, ABA has created a press release template that bookstores can use to bring the campaign to the attention of their local media. To access the sample release, click here.

To read about independent booksellers' efforts in the campaign, click here.