Why the Book Fair is IMPORTANT

Some of you may not realize that when we host Mrs. Nelson’s Book Fair a percentage of the earnings go directly back into the library. The library is in a bit of a transition period at the moment. Not only are we looking at opening a learning commons but we are still transitioning to genre-tizing our fiction section. For those reasons I held off ordering new books and using our book fair credit. At the beginning of the year I knew I had waited long enough. Children were coming in asking if I had this book or that book. There is nothing I hate more than not having the books they are requesting. Enough was enough, I decided to finally place the order I had been working on since last year’s book fair. The resulting order was 396 books, many of which had been requested by the students and teachers as well as a bunch of newly published books.

::NEW INFO::

Just so you all realize how the book fair really boosts our acquisitions, after ordering through Mrs. Nelson’s in September I placed my second order of the year through a different company called Follett. We have used them since we opened the school library. In a typical school year I place 2-3 orders. They are not all typically as huge as these last two orders were. Depending on our budge, book fair earnings and requests from students 1-2 of my orders is through Follett. When I order through Follett the library budget pays for the books. As you read earlier I was able to purchase 396 books from Mrs. Nelson’s with last years book fair earnings. Not one cent of the library budget went toward that purchase. Without the book fair earnings we would have had to pay Mrs. Nelsons $6,233.65. The order I placed through Follett contains 322 books and is costing the library $5,621.67! The budget for the library is $6,000. As you can see, without our book fair we would only be able to purchase half the amount of books. Just think we haven’t even gotten the earnings from this years book fair. Without the book fair we would not be able to purchase all the BRAND NEW books being published in 2015. As a librarian I am blessed and beyond grateful that I can continue to get the newest books to our students.

We are going to work as fast as we can to get these books processed and shelved. Look to start checking out next week!

::UPDATE::

All copies from the Mrs. Nelson’s order have been processed and our in our system. We still have about 30 copies that need their book jackets covered or kapco covers. I have had some amazing 6th grade helpers and a few parents volunteer to get these books covered when Miss. Malissa, Miss Tricia, or myself are busy.