Book Fair Came to Town

The Scholastic Book Fair was at the MSJH Library for just over one week.  Even though I loved walking into the library everyday and smelling the scent of fresh books, it was a lot of hard work.  I think it was worth it???  The reason I'm still debating the merits of the Book Fair is that even though it was fun pretending to be a book store cashier again (like those bygone days at Pages for All Ages), the students mostly bought cheap, little trinkets.  I mean, I know they're in middle school, and that's what they like, but I wanted to sell more books.

The library was turned into a bookstore for eight days!  It smelled REALLY good.

With a Scholastic Book Fair, the library could take 35% cash or 50% Scholastic Dollars after it was over.  With the Scholastic Dollars I can order books from their online store immediately.  With the cash, I would have to wait for a check, cash it, and then wait for it to be added to the library fund.  It made sense to me to go with the Scholastic Bucks to help with immediate collection development needs.  The selection definitely isn't as big as Amazon, but I think it was the right decision in the end.

 

You have to sell the Scholastic posters.  Who doesn't want a poster of a fast car, kitty cat in space, or sport team in their room???

 

With the display cases, table sets, poster boxes, and trinket store, it "only" took two people 3 1/2 hours to set up! 

The Scholastic cash wrap, where I spent most of my time selling cheap pens and pencils to students.  I need parent help next time, and I need to consider selling only books.  However, approximately $400 of our sales came from trinkets.

Have a look at some of my favorite finds at the Book Fair, and the next time one rolls into your town/library, go check it out.  The books you buy (although not discounted like online stores), helps your school library get funds to buy even more books!

 

The Scholastic Representative who came to help set up the fair said they'd be trying to sell the Twilight movie book until they ran out.  There are still hundreds in Scholastic warehouses across the country.  And, who wouldn't want a book of Superstar Crushes!?  (No one here.)

My favorite book on offer by far.  I wanted to get it for my brother--who HATES mayonnaise and thinks it should be outlawed everywhere--as a joke, but at $5.00 it was still too expensive.

More Display Talk: A Later Post

For the first time since starting this crazy librarian stuff (that would be since August 2014 at Uni High in Urbana when I was grad assistant), I forgot to take a photo of a display as soon as I was done with it.  This was a big display, too.  The biggest one I had ever compiled, since my space at Uni tended to be so limited.  Why is this so bad?  Because students actually came and checked out books before I could document it!  (Darn kids.  Wantin' to read and stuff.)

My display is entitled Back to School.  All of the books have to do with starting middle school, starting a new school, school drama/problems, bullies in school, schools of magic and princesses, etc.  It was a lot of fun going through the collection to find books like this.  Because our collection is pretty small, I was worried I wouldn't find enough, but I shouldn't have worried so much.  I found plenty--enough to fill up three big shelves.

Here are a few photos of the display, its space, and the different organizations I've done to keep the display looking good as books are checked out:

Here it is after one period of students had been through.  Several holes already!  Good library problem.  The first display day was Monday, August 24, 2015. 

  
So many of the books had been checked out after one day that I re-organized all of the books onto the middle shelf, and left the two side shelves empty. 

  
A few of the books had been read and returned by Tuesday, September 1, so I was able to spread them out a bit.  This is a week after I put up the display.

And, of course I made some signage for the collection.  Because the display area is so big, though, the sign gets kind of lost.  I'll have to work on that in the future.  

Did you really think I WOULDN'T use this Billy Madison quote for my Back to School display?  If you did, you haven't been reading my blog for very long.

I've learned a few things from this first big display of the year:
1)  Students actually check out books here, because they want to, have time to read, or are forced to.  ;)
2)  If I want a photo of a display, I better take one QUICKLY...before the kids come and ransack it!
3)  Once again, gathering books for a display is the best way to learn about your collection.  I can also learn what I need to add to the collection.