JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - The Jacksonville Public Library is collecting eclipse glasses at all library branches through Sept. 17. After that, they will be collected by staff at Jacksonville University and sent to Astronomers Without Borders.
“There’s lots of eclipse glasses circulating around Jacksonville right now and people are wondering what to do with them,” said Dr. Brian Lane, an associate professor of physics at Jacksonville University.
JU donated 4,000 eclipse glasses for the library system to hand out prior to the eclipse. Now, they’re hoping people all over the First Coast donate them those across the world can see future eclipses.
“They’re collecting these for impoverished schools, for local organizations that want to promote astronomy but that don’t have the funds to purchase these glasses,” Lane said.
According to the Astronomers Without Borders website, the donated glasses will help people view two solar eclipses in 2019: one in South America and another in Southeastern Asia.
Lane said the mission of Astronomers Without Borders is two-fold. In addition to providing resources for people to safely view eclipses, they also hope to unite people from different backgrounds and cultures through astronomy.
“Because as they put it we all share the same sky so we all have that in common no matter how different we are,” Lane said.
Lane hoped to gather thousands of eclipse glasses and anticipated needing volunteers to help package them. If you’d like to volunteer, you can email him at wlane@ju.edu.
For a list of library branch locations, click here.
