Libraries’ online store sells chocolates, student care packages
November 17th, 2006
By Andrea Blair
Plato had it right: Necessity is the mother of invention.
It’s what led the UofL Libraries’ board members to come up with a novel idea — an online store to raise money for the libraries.
“Unlike academic units, the libraries don’t have an alumni base that we can ask for financial support,” said Traci Simonsen, director of development for the libraries. “So we have to think more creatively.”
The result is the UofL Libraries’ new online gift shop, which sells chocolates and care packages for UofL students and employees. In the next month, they will add sterling silver jewelry and prints from the university’s photo archives. The plan is to open a physical gift shop in Ekstrom Library next year.
Proceeds help the Libraries purchase books and databases and expand technology.
“Many museums make 35 percent or more of their profits through gift shops. So we thought, ‘Why shouldn’t we try it?’” Simonsen said.
The board members are particularly proud of its signature chocolates, packaged by Louisville’s Dundee’s Candy Shop exclusively for the UofL Libraries. The candy box looks like a handmade book, with a cover that opens to reveal a half pound of gourmet milk and dark chocolate caramels or butter creams framing the Libraries’ own signature dark chocolates. Dundee donates a significant portion of the $18.50 price to the Libraries.
“The decision to sell gourmet chocolate was a no brainer,” Simonsen said. “We had to do it for the dean, who adores chocolate.” (See related story.)
The virtual store also sells UofL Care Boxes, which are popular gifts from parents to UofL students. The boxes contain a variety of healthy foods that avoid heavily processed sugars, bleached flour, artificial preservatives, chemical additives or hydrogenated oils.
Prices range from $20 for the international date box, which provides a gourmet meal for two, to $74.95 for seven complete meals plus snacks and coupons to local restaurants. The brain and booster boxes have energy-boosting foods for $39.95.
Related Link
Library gift shop
Dean shares love of chocolate
UofL Libraries dean Hannelore Rader is a self-confessed chocoholic. So much so that she bakes sweets for her staff and students — usually involving chocolate — every day.
Hannelore Rader not only is a leader in the field of library science, she also is an avid baker.
That’s little exaggeration. Traci Simonsen, a fundraiser for the libraries, said she only remembers two days in the last two years when Rader did not bring homemade goods to the office.
“She spoils us,” Simonsen said. “She may be the only dean in the country who bakes every day for her staff.”
Rader confesses that she’s not a typical academic dean.
Sure, she’s accumulated a lengthy list of teaching and leadership awards, has authored more than 100 articles on information literacy and library administrative issues and is a regularly requested presenter at national and international conferences.
Under her direction, the UofL Libraries became a member of the elite Association of Research Libraries in 2002, acquired its 2 millionth volume in 2005, and in 2006 saw the addition of 42,500 square feet, a 24-hour study area and one of the nation’s first robotic book-retrieval systems. The library addition also has received national accolades for its design.
But a dean who bakes?
Rader’s interest in feeding others, she said, is partly a result of her German roots. She grew up in East Germany under the Russian occupation. Food often was scarce, and fine chocolate practically nonexistent east of the Berlin Wall.
She learned to bake from her mother, a professional cook who provided for the family by cooking for the occupying Russians.
“Her baking was more basic than mine, but that’s where I learned,” Rader said. “I like to feed people. I think it’s making up for my growing up under difficult circumstances when many people went hungry.”
Rader also believes strongly that chocolate is good for you — in moderation, of course.
“First of all, it’s brain food. Dark chocolate helps keep high blood pressure in check,” she said. “And it just tastes really good.”
There is a downside to all this baking, Rader said.
“I may have to quit — I’m going bankrupt buying ingredients,” she exclaimed. “But I figure it’s my donation. It makes the students and staff so happy. Plus, it helps me relax.”
Something this busy dean needs.
