WHAT WE DO
alexlaurenschauer@gmail.com
2025-07-28T01:14:46+00:00
Our Mission
4 the World Resource Distributors is dedicated to broadening evangelical educational outcomes and library effectiveness by appraising library processes, providing staff development, evaluating student use, recommending and supplying resources, and facilitating networking.
RECORD YEARS-RECORD OPPORTUNITIES
Our past two years were record breaking, phenomenal years. Over 200,000 books were shipped, dozens of schools helped, giving records broken, building repairs made, partnerships created, and more. Additional schools are asking for help. Thank you for the faithfulness of all involved-volunteers, prayer partners, financial supporters, and those with words of encouragement. Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me, bless His holy name!
4 the World assists schools by doubling the size of holdings, helping school libraries meet accreditation standards, facilitating moving from print to computerized catalogues, weeding collections, updating electronic catalogues, repairing hundreds of books, training librarians and staff, developing procedures, evaluating holdings, recommending acquisitions, and answering hundreds of questions.
4WRD hopes and plans to ship 2 pallets of books to Samoa Leadership Bible College in Pago Pago, American Samoa. Glenna and I spent three weeks in this tropical paradise developing the processes for encoding the library into an electronic database. Our shipment updates the collection and fills in a few gaps.
4WRD hopes and plans to ship 2 pallets of books to Samoa Leadership Bible College in Pago Pago, American Samoa. Glenna and I spent three weeks in this tropical paradise developing the processes for encoding the library into an electronic database. Our shipment updates the collection and fills in a few gaps.
We also provide library training, both on-site and long-distance, including:
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Core recommended books for effective bible school libraries
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Review of library procedures
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Book collection development initiatives
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On-site library evaluations and recommendations
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Counsel for accreditation processes
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Funding help
Training and conferences are held for librarians in Austria, Kenya, and Malaysia. Training includes:
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Acquisitions
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Cataloguing
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Classification
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Teaching library use & research
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Book repair
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Periodicals
Over the years, 4WRD partnered with container shipments of books with other groups or filled containers “all by ourselves” (we might have loaded them with onsite staff, but numerous people stood with us, or we never could have filled those containers ). Our averages are about:
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2 containers a year or 67,000 books a year.
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Nearly 1,700 boxes a year.
Some books are picked up on-site. Some we ship using all the standard shippers (UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS). Greyhound came in handy a few times when shipping to Mexico. Missionaries and teachers take suitcases weighing up to the ounce under 50 pounds. Our largest single shipment reached 44,000 books. However, a single book gets more care and attention when shipped.
All items we ship are requested or screened before shipping. Part of the reason for the warehouse is to provide space for sorting. On average, 75,000 books are sorted each year. Some go overseas, some are recycled, and some create income by being sold online. 4WRD usually has about 6,000 different used titles and 1,000 new titles on shelves at any given time for missionaries or teachers to choose from.
