For the past 4 years, we have had a program at Barrow called the Barrow Buddy Book Builders.  This program has allowed families and community members to purchase new books for our library from a wishlist and dedicate those books to someone special or in memory of someone.  When orders were made, I had conversations with the students involved so that the book that was chosen matched an interest that they had.  I also handled all of the financial records, wrote receipts, made the dedication labels and certificates, placed the order, processed the books when the came in, and more.  Now that I no longer have a paraprofessional this program was one that I had to look at closely.  Thankfully, Bound to Stay Bound Books, one of our main vendors, started a program called S.O.S Library.  This program is essentially the same thing I was already doing, but BTSB does all of the work!

I just bought the first book for our library, Elephant and Piggie:  Let’s Go for a Drive!,  in honor of my daughter and son, and the process was really easy to follow.

Here’s how it works:

• Starting today, visit http://www.btsb.com/sosl/davidcbarrowelementary/
• Browse our wishlist of books.  Select the book(s) you wish to purchase and add to your cart.  If there is a specific book you are looking for but don’t see on the list, email me and I’ll add it to the list if it’s available.
• Choose your donation plate and add your dedication.
• Checkout.
• The book(s) will be shipped directly to our school already ready to put onto the library shelves!
• BTSB will email you a receipt for your tax records.

Even if you can’t afford to purchase a whole book, you can make a monetary donation on the site as well.  Donated money will be pooled together to purchase books from the list.  You can even add a monetary donation to your book order if you want to give a little more.

I’m so glad that we are able to continue the Book Builder Program in a new way.  I hope you’ll visit our site today to make your donation and share with anyone and everyone.