LEXINGTON, Ky., — A book drive sponsored by University of Kentucky Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering’s honor society, Alpha Epsilon, runs from Feb. 15 through March 30. The drive will collect gently used books for the International Book Project.

This is the third year Alpha Epsilon has held the drive, which promotes literacy and cultural understanding. Last year’s drive collected more than 1,000 books from the colleges of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Engineering and Medicine as well as all over campus.

UK alumna Harriet Van Meter was struck by people’s need and desire for books while on a trip to India. She founded the International Book Project in 1966. The project has continued to grow long after her death in 1997, distributing more than 6 million books throughout the world and the United States. It sends both small, tailored shipments of a few dozen books to small organizations and sea containers of 20,000 books to organizations with the capacity to handle such volume.

Medical, engineering and agricultural books are in high demand, though organizers will accept all types of books, including children’s books. Volumes must be in good condition; the International Book Project cannot accept books with torn or missing pages, broken bindings, excessive notes, highlighting or yellowed pages.

Those interested in donating books should contact Jian Shi, Alpha Epsilon’s faculty adviser, at j.shi@uky.edu. He will arrange a pickup date and time on campus. If desired, donors can also drop off books at Lab 151 in the C. E. Barnhart Building, but they should email Shi first to make sure the lab is open.

For more information about the International Book Project, visit its website, http://www.intlbookproject.org.

The Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering resides in both the UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment and the College of Engineering.