The last group of books from this year’s student book budget group has arrived.  Our spring break slowed us down a bit, but our Capstone books are finally ready.

When the books arrived, students worked together to unpack the boxes and check the packing slip.  Next, students made decisions about what genres each book would go into and added the genre label to the spine. Finally, they scanned the books into each genre subcategory.

The books were put on display in the center tables of the library as well as in the library windows. As the team was setting up the books, students were already checking them out.

This project always amazes me because it allows so many high-interest books to be added to our collection.  I’m to the point now where I reserve much of our book fair profit to use on this project. This is combined with Capstone Rewards dollars which stretch our budget a bit further.

I’m also very grateful to Capstone for letting our book budget team members choose an additional book to add to the collection that is completely their choice.

This spring break, I traveled to Mankato, MN to speak to many of the Capstone employees about the work of students in my school.  The book budget team was a big part of what I shared.  After my talk, they even sent us some additional books to improve our fun facts section of the library since that was a category we focused on this year.

I was also able to go behind the scenes to see all of the steps an order goes through before it arrives at our school.  When the boxes arrived, I could tell the students about the many hands that went into creating the books as well as the people who helped with the order. Each book was gathered from the warehouse shelves by hand. The labels were lovingly placed onto each book by hand. Each book was hand-packed into boxes and prepared for shipping.

The experience of seeing all of the people behind the company is making me think more about next year’s group and what layers we might add on to our project.

Now, it’s time for the readers of Barrow to read the books that were carefully chosen based on the data we received.  We can’t wait to see readers checking out these books again and again.

Thank you Capstone for your generous support of our project.