Books and bicycles may not have much in common, but University professor Joseph H. Goldberg plans to combine the two this summer.

Goldberg, an associate professor of industrial and management systems engineering, plans to bike 3,426 miles across the United States to raise money for the University Libraries.

He said he will fulfill a lifelong dream as he helps the Campaign for the Library by biking across the nation. Goldberg will be one of 60 participants in Ride Across America, a program sponsored by Pedal for Power.

The Ride Across America group leaves Los Angeles on May 15. Participants will ride through the Arizona and New Mexico deserts and across the Corn Belt of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. Then they will pedal through Ohio, Pennsylvania and northern New York before arriving in Boston on July 3.

Goldberg has raised about $3,400 and estimated about two-thirds of the donations have been per mile and one-third flat sums. Colleagues, friends and relatives have helped out, but fund raising has been difficult, he said.

In order to qualify for Ride Across America, participants must raise at least $5,000. About one-third of the money raised covers expenses such as housing and food.

Goldberg said he will pay all his expenses, so the money he raises will go to Pattee and the Bicyclists' Educational and Legal Foundation of the League of American Wheelmen.

"We were supposed to choose something that we believe in," he said, adding he thinks expansion of the library is critical.

The library also needs enough funds to buy more books and journals, Goldberg said. "Clearly the library is central to the success of the University."

It is rewarding to see an individual take on such a commitment to the library, said Nancy Cline, dean of University Libraries.

The trip across the United States is more of a commitment than the distance it involves.

"I wouldn't say it was as great a physical test as I thought it would be," said Anne Holmes, a health education instructor at Wilkes-Barre Campus who participated in Pedal for Power last summer. "It is more of a test of the mind."

But for Holmes, the positive experience of riding for her charity -- Habitat for Humanity --outweighed all of the negatives.

When things got tough on the road, memories of support at home "kicked you in the butt," Holmes said. "It makes you remember --I'm out there for a reason."

Cline said she hopes Goldberg's efforts will motivate other people to do what they can to raise money for the library.

The Campaign for the Library began last fall with the goal of raising $10 million before Dec. 31, 1993, she said, adding it has raised $4.6 million to date.