Topsy Smalley is an instructional librarian at Cabrillo College Library in Aptos, Calif. In April 2003, as Baghdad fell, she saw the widespread looting of Iraqi museums, hospitals, universities and libraries.

As a librarian, Smalley was particularly pained to learn of the destruction and desecration of libraries. She decided to make contact with librarians in Iraq and offer, at the very least, her professional condolences.

Smalley reminds us that when we tap into our own passions (hers are books, learning and libraries) we can make a difference.

To make contact, Smalley went through listings of Iraqi universities in the International Handbook of Universities and culled e-mails. She sent them. No one replied.

She contacted the Middle East Librarians Association and received snail-mail addresses for three librarians in Baghdad. Her plans to send them letters were thwarted when she learned there was no U.S. mail service to Iraq.

She wrote to Laura Bush, who was once a school librarian, and asked for her help. No response.

Smalley reminds me that patience is a virtue. From her, I learn that to do something right, you have to be persistent.

Six months later, through a Web site for the Coalition Provision Authority in Iraq, she made contact with a senior adviser to the Ministry for Higher Education and Scientific Research. He supplied her with eight e-mail addresses of presidents of Iraqi universities. Six bounced.

But two got through.

By trying and testing, observing and assessing, Smalley learned a number of important things:

1) University libraries in Iraq were in terrible shape.

2) Iraqi university libraries have had no new college-level textbooks since 1991.

3) English is the language of instruction in Iraqi higher education.

4) Iraqi university libraries desperately needed new textbooks, especially in the sciences and mathematics.

She also learned she could use the Ministry's Army Post Office (APO) address to send books to Baghdad.

So began the booklift.

With help from Cabrillo College faculty and librarians, Smalley began to ship box after box of books to Baghdad. Since November 2003, Smalley has shipped 144 boxes of books to Iraq.

Smalley reminds me that actions speak louder than words. From Smalley I learn that before we act, we must understand what is needed. To understand what is needed, we must learn to listen.

There is so much more to Smalley's story. When she learned she could no longer use the Ministry for Higher Education and Scientific Research's APO, so she found help from a female first lieutenant in the U.S. Army in Iraq. She facilitated collaboration between chemistry faculty and students at Basrah University and Cabrillo College. Then, suddenly, she no longer heard from an Iraqi with whom she'd been collaborating.

As the war waged (and wages) on, Smalley's booklift continued. When she ran against walls, she learned to go around them, to go over them and sometimes, with the help of others, to go through them.

I can only imagine the feelings of sorrow and hope Smalley felt when she received messages of gratitude from Iraqis. From the Director of the Art College Library of Baghdad's Al-Mustansiriya University: "I thank you very much for your feeling of sadness for the damage. I wish to see your library at your college, and I wish that you could come to Iraq and see our library. I wish that we had all the books for our needs in education that you have in Cabrillo College Library. Thank you again."

From a theoretical chemist at the University of Basrah: "Thank you for the gift of wonderful new textbooks from faculty and librarians at Cabrillo College. Because of the shortage of books, and the fact that we have not had links to the academic world in many decades, these books are of great importance and experience for our University of Basrah. We all thank you so very much for these books!"

From Smalley -- her ideas, her actions, her passion and her hope -- we should all learn that dialogue is better than destruction, and that books are better than bombs.