Scholastic Bookfair Comes to Berkshire
Mrs. Arnold explains how bookfairs benefit our school
by Abby Curtin, BP Editor
December 11, 2007
During the week of December 3rd, the Berkshire High School library played host to the Scholastic Bookfair. Though most people are familiar with the bookfair, which is held at BHS twice annually (once in the fall and once in the spring), little is known about how the bookfairs benefit our library and media center. Head Librarian and Media Specialist, Mrs. Jackie Arnold explained why the Scholastic Bookfairs are so important to the expansion and updating of our school’s resources.
Arnold explained that if Berkshire uses its profits from the bookfair to order books through Scholastic, Scholastic will double its profits, allowing the school to increase the number of items purchased. “For example, if we make a 500 dollar profit, scholastic will turn that into 1000 dollars that we can use to purchase books and other materials from them,” said Arnold. The school also gets points for every special event during which it opens the bookfair up to the public, such as during pancake breakfasts. Our school won four new DVD players with its points. “These bonuses are especially helpful for Berkshire since the library / media center hasn’t had much money to spend on books because it has recently been needed to go towards updating computers and other technology,” said Arnold.
This year, Scholastic hopes to be able to provide books for less fortunate students across America. In a program called One For Books, students who donate one dollar to the cause sign book slips, which are displayed at the bookfair. Scholastic will then match the monetary donation our school makes, which totals approximately 250 dollars, with a donation of up to one million books to three non-profit organizations.
This fall, Berkshre High School successfully brought in 1200 dollars, which results in a total profit of 300 dollars that will be doubled by Scholastic and spent on new books and or educational DVDs/videos for the school library and media center. In addition, the One For Books project brought in about 250 dollars. This is more money that BHS will be able to use to purchase materials through Scholastic and that will also be donated to three non-profit organizations dedicated to promoting children’s literacy.
Arnold pointed out that Scholastic is a company that is very interested in helping schools out. “They are very good to schools,” she said. We should be very thankful that companies like Scholastic are trying to help to keep high school libraries up to date and keep students interested in reading.
