Adult ADHD at Your Local Library?

Update 1/23/09:  At least 203 public libraries, including two in Australia and one in Germany, now carry Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.? Thanks to everyone who asked your local library to carry it.   If you’d like your library branch to order the book, click here access a flyer with all the information your librarian will need.

Ten years ago, I chanced upon a new book at our local library: Neuropsychiatrist Daniel Amen’s Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness. It did change my life, my husband’s life, and our marriage. And it set me on a path to help others change their lives by creating more awareness of Adult ADHD.

When my book, Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.? Stopping the Roller Coaster When Someone You Love Has Attention Deficit Disorder, was published, one of my top priorities was making the book available in public libraries. (I don’t know about your library system, but ours seems to go out of its way to stock books by the ADHD dissenters and deniers.) I’m grateful that fans of the book share this goal, as explained in this recent note from Jack in Canada, and hope you will join us:

Dear Gina

I had put in a suggestion in the library’s on-line system for your book, but I thought I would do it personally. So I went to the main branch downtown and spoke to one of the librarians. I shared about going to the CADDAC conference in Toronto, meeting you and hearing Dr. Barkley and his having researched ADHD since the seventies etc.

This librarian said something like, “Yeah, before it even had a name.” I look at at him quizzically and he proceeds to tell me that his father, who self diagnosed after reading up on it some years ago, and later was confirmed by his doctor. He ticked off the standard adult symptoms, the importance of the information being available etc. and took your card, as well as info on Dr. Thomas E. Brown’s book, Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults, and Dr. Russell Barkley et al’s book, ADHD in Adults: What the Science Says.

When I mentioned that I was starting a local peer support group for adults with ADHD, he said I could use their nice meeting room. I think this suggestion will be well taken care of!

Thanks Jack!

In this economic crunch, more people are using the library even as the fast-approaching fiscal year promises to severely squeeze library acquisition budgets. That’s why I’m asking if you will help spread the word now.

Click here to download a specially designed flyer containing all the information your library needs to order the book. (You might want to add that the book received four national book awards recently, including Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year for Psychology.) If you don’t have time to bring the flyer to your local branch, simply call or send an e-mail. Libraries do try to honor patrons’ requests.

Remember: Many people can’t afford to buy books, much less computers — to say nothing of ADHD treatment. A library book might be their only path to awareness and validation.

But please hurry….budgets are draining fast!

Thank you,

Gina Pera

TagsAdult ADHD and public library, books about Adult ADHD, daniel amen, Gina Pera, is it you me or adult add?, Russell Barkley, Thomas E. Brown