How to Get Free Books For Your School Library (and Use Them to Host a Book Fair)

Raised in a tiny city in Nova Scotia, Canada, Lucas Maxwell grew up on comedian books and Nintendo. He’s failed at a number of jobs together with rise up comic, furnishings maker, door-to-door salesman, working in a slaughter home and being a fisherman. After realizing that books have been extra his factor, he took on a Master’s Degree in Information & Library Studies and handed with flying…nicely, no matter is slightly below aces. After working in a public library in Nova Scotia for a few years, Lucas packed up together with his household and moved to the UK the place he is now a faculty librarian in London. He blogs concerning the enjoyable issues he will get to do within the library at http://glenthornelrc.blogspot.co.uk.

Twitter: @lucasjmaxwell

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There is rising analysis to present that guide possession can have a large impression on a little one’s life, even after they attain maturity. I’ve written earlier than on working our wonderful Book Award which highlights nice “under the radar” books and will get your entire faculty studying them. On high of this, we additionally run guide gala’s in our faculties as soon as a yr. Book gala’s usually go away a unhealthy style in my mouth as a result of they’re exclusionary in some ways. Students would possibly really feel omitted as a result of they’ll’t afford the books and may also be hesitant to come to the library for future occasions in the event that they assume there’s a value to participating. I by no means favored the thought of creating children pay cash for books, that’s a guide retailer’s precedence, not mine.

This is why I made a decision to try to create a free guide honest for our Year 8 college students (ages 12-13). Why this age group? Getting these books at no cost was no straightforward feat, actually. It took 10+ years for me to have the option to be in a place to obtain them. This age group was chosen as a result of it’s a large group (300 + college students) and since the books I used to be receiving have been aimed toward that group, I had little to no management over the sorts of books I used to be getting. I’ll clarify all of this…proper now!

The Free Book Fair for Year 8 passed off by means of their devoted library classes. They get these classes as soon as each two weeks. They merely get to select from a large vary of free books that I’ve been gathering.

It wasn’t straightforward to run a guide honest like this and there’s no magic button to press that allowed me to do that. I’ve spent nearly 10 years cultivating and increase a studying for pleasure group within the faculty and on high of this I’ve constructed relationships with publishers and authors which has resulted on this guide honest taking off. I can say that social media performed a large position on this achievement. As a lot as I despise it, platforms like Twitter have executed a lot of fine for each myself and the scholars within the faculty.

Everything I’m about to point out takes your personal private time away from you. There isn’t any straightforward approach to do it, there isn’t a fast street to getting despatched free books. I by no means set out to obtain free books or be a guide blogger and even be a librarian. I didn’t anticipate any of this, however I’m very pleased with this second and needed to try to share some ways in which I really feel have helped.

Write guide evaluations

You may not get pleasure from writing guide evaluations, however beginning your personal weblog and writing your ideas, nevertheless fast, concerning the books you’ve been studying could make a large distinction. When I say “your books,” I imply books you’ve purchased or books you have already got in your library. I’d recommend doing this should you aren’t already as nobody goes to ship you free books out of the blue. One, it would get you within the mindset of studying each day which librarians sometimes wouldn’t have time for. Writing guide evaluations and tagging the writer, illustrator if they’ve one, publishers, anybody concerned within the guide will solely find yourself being a good factor. It goes with out saying that it is best to by no means tag authors in unfavorable evaluations and for my part, until your profession is a skilled reviewer, we as laymen shouldn’t be writing unfavorable evaluations on-line in any respect. I’ve executed this up to now, earlier than I used to be a librarian and shortly realized it was a shallow recreation that nobody ought to play. Again, my opinion.

Stack of books — Photo Courtesy of Lucas Maxwell

Build a social media following

I’d strongly recommend following authors and publishers on social media. This will enable you to discover out about new books which can be popping out but additionally simply to have a contact. I’ve discovered that authors love being tagged in supportive, optimistic messages about their books. I imply who wouldn’t need that? Even if it’s simply to present the guide within the library, you by no means know what’s going to come of it. The first writer I ever tagged in a tweet was Holly Bourne as a result of we had a group of scholars (and nonetheless do) obsessed together with her and when she tweeted again at me to say thanks, I confirmed it to the scholars they usually misplaced their minds. This resulted in me reserving Holly for a go to which was actually wonderful.

Go to conferences

Attending conferences by means of the School Library Association, CILIP, YLG, LILAC and others can put you in contact with publishers and ship you dwelling with tons of nice books (I’m based mostly within the UK — these will likely be totally different relying on the place you reside). This is on high of assembly nice folks and studying tons of latest issues about librarianship. Even higher, apply to converse at a convention, that is one thing I really like doing. I can’t converse to folks nicely one on one however I can converse to a room full of individuals and never have a second considered it. This has resulted in additional talking alternatives and fairly frankly extra consideration on social media which in flip has resulted in free books.

Give Students a Voice

This is my favorite one. I really like listening to what college students say about books, even when it’s one sentence. I’m not anticipating a dissertation on the themes of the guide, I simply get pleasure from listening to the scholars speak concerning the books they’re returning or studying on the tables. I’ll usually say to them, “that’s great, do you mind if I tell the author on social media?” they usually at all times say sure. Does this lead to free books? No, however in case you are beginning out as somebody who’s championing studying for pleasure, capturing college students’ voices is important. And authors love listening to from college students simply as a lot as they love listening to from librarians.

That’s it! It’s taken a very long time to do but it surely’s one of many proudest issues I’ve completed within the faculty to date!

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