How to Hold a Book Swap at Your School

Books are meant to be read, but once you've done that, what do you do with them? One great way to pass along your used books, and get some new ones into your hands, is to organize a book swap. Set one up at your child's school, and you can use it as a fund-raising project in which people pay for used books, or you can do a simple one-to-one swap. Better yet, leftover books can be donated to your school's library.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Books
• Volunteers
• Place to hold your event
• Time to plan
• Bags and boxes for shoppers
• Price stickers (optional)

1. Make sure there's an awareness of your upcoming school book swap. Once you've picked a date for the book swap, send home a flier with all the students announcing what's coming. The flier should include not only the date and time, but also a request for used books. Specify whether or not you'll take everything, or just children's books. Will you take books in any condition, or just those that are "gently used"? Always be sure to include a cutoff date for donations, which says something like "All contributions should be sent in no later than (date)". If you're treating this as a sale, rather than a swap, include a note about where the proceeds will go or what they'll be used for.

2. When people donate their books, give them a voucher that allows them to take the same number of books out as they've sent in. A family who contributes ten books will be able to get ten books on the day of the school book swap at no charge, but a family who only sends in one book will only be able to trade it for one new book. If you're doing this as a straight sale, you won't need the vouchers, because people will be able to come in and shop at their leisure.

3. As books begin to come in, you'll need to sort them by category. If they're all children's books, you should still separate them based on reading level. Picture books and chapter books are two completely different things. Assign categories, such as Board Books, Preschoolers, Beginning Readers, Easy Chapter Books, Advanced Chapters, and so forth. If you get a lot of books in a series, you may want to group those together for easy sale. If you're taking adult books as well, group them as Mysteries, Romance, Non-Fiction, and any other categories you may need. If your event is a book sale rather than a book swap, this is when you should set prices. Remember, these are used books, so don't overprice them!

4. The week before the event, send home reminder notices with each child. Make sure you have plenty of volunteers to help out during the sale, and have bags and boxes available for shoppers if possible. Devise a checkout system so that everyone who leaves with books has to stop by and have their books counted. If it's a swap event, this is where you'll collect their voucher. If it's a fundraiser, this is where you'll have a cashier totaling up each sale.

5. Finally, when the event is over, have a plan in place for what to do with leftover books. Are you going to give them to the school or the public library? A children's hospital? The local thrift store? Make certain that you have a way to get them out of the building, and be sure to clean up after your event is over. Send thank-you notes to any volunteers who helped out with your school book swap.