By Deborah Bowser, Indiana, USA
Editors Note: Over the years many individuals and groups have participated in programs dedicated to placing The Urantia Book in libraries. Ms. Bowser describes her efforts as a part of the Reader Support Team (RST) of the Greater Lake Michigan Urantia Association. For more information on library book placement, contact Tamara Strumfeld at [email protected] [2]
I am fairly new to the community of Urantia Book readers. I discovered The Urantia Book in May of 2008. After the death of my son in September of 1994, I hit an all-time spiritual low that lasted for about ten years. I gave up trying to understand why. It was not that I blamed God for the loss of my child. I just couldn't find the answers. I drifted through life spiritually asleep.
Finally I woke up to the fact that I needed to find God to understand anything about life and death. I began to read anything of a spiritual nature, anything I could get my hands on. My mother had had The Urantia Book for 16 years, but she had never read it because she couldn't understand it. Forgotten on a bookshelf all these years, she remembered it and gave it to me. (Mom is now reading The Urantia Book and is presently enrolled in a course with The Urantia Book Internet School. I am so happy about this!)
The Urantia Book has changed my life in so many positive ways, and through its pages, I have found the answers which have healed me spiritually and have given me peace. As believers in the teachings of The Urantia Book, we all look for ways to spread the joy that we have found. The book needs to be disseminated so that all the people of the world can find it and read it.
One of the main goals of the Reader Support Team is to seed the world with The Urantia Book by placing it in as many public and private libraries as possible. We are focusing on libraries in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. To start I obtained a list of all Indiana public libraries from the internet, taking the letters D through G. Another team member took the letters A through C. I ended up with a list of over 30 different libraries to contact. Before contacting these libraries, I checked the online catalog to see if the library had a copy of The Urantia Book. If not, I contacted the person in charge of the adult circulation department and offered them a free copy with the understanding that, if they decided not to accept it after it arrived, they would return it. I then directed them to The Urantia Foundation's website, which contains a detailed description of the book. Then, I waited for their reply, either by phone or email.
Of the 30 libraries I contacted in Indiana, 11 accepted the book. The effort was time-consuming but very rewarding. I will continue to work on the library placement mission, and I recommend this work to anyone who has the time and means to pursue it. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.