5.27.2005 ET

(CSRwire) NEW YORK, NY - Oxford University Press is partnering with BookAid International to ask Americans to donate their old dictionaries to charity.

Anyone who donates a good, usable English dictionary to BookAid will receive a $10 rebate towards their purchase of The New Oxford American Dictionary Second Edition ($60.00 hardcover, May 16, 2005). Their old dictionaries will then be sent to libraries in the third world, including sub-Saharan Africa and areas hardest hit by last December's tsunami in Sri Lanka.

Oxford even provides a postage paid mailing label for dictionary donations, available for download at www.oup.com/us/dictionaryrebate.

"Oxford's customers have been extremely generous," reports Rebecca Seger, Director of Reference Marketing for Oxford University Press. "Donated dictionaries will shortly be on their way to help English speakers, and those struggling to learn English, in the developing world."

Books are the basic tools of literacy and education, yet millions of children and adults across the developing world do not have access to them. Book Aid International provides over half a million books and journals each year to libraries, hospitals, refugee camps and schools in the world's poorest English-speaking countries.

"We're extremely proud of the opportunity to promote literacy around the world and make good use of these used dictionaries," said Laura Brown, president of Oxford University Press USA. "It's a great way for readers and publishers to come together and do some real good in this world. Instead of throwing out old dictionaries, or having them sit on a shelf unused, we're doing something to help others."

"BookAid will be supporting the reconstruction of libraries in Sri Lanka, which were wiped out in the recent tsunami," noted Sara Harrity, Director of BookAid International. "Fifty-two community libraries have been damaged or destroyed by the tsunami, and we will be supplying around 25,000 books as our contribution to ensuring that education is restored as quickly as possible in the affected areas."

BookAid and Oxford both believe that books can make a real difference to people's lives. Farmers, nurses, mechanics, development workers and teachers around the world all need books and information to support their work.

For more information please visit www.oup.com/us/dictionaryrebate