At our school, we host a book swap during reading week. Each day at lunchtime for a few days before the official "swap", students collect one ticket for every two books they bring in to swap. Each ticket is redeemable on book swap day for one book. Since we're doing a 2:1 swap, the additional books get donated to a local literacy agency, such as the Red Wagon Reader program. The kids love it, especially when they see a schoolmate choose a book they brought in.

At our school we don't do a book exchange but each Spring we hold a Used Book Sale. Throughout the year we collect the books in the lobby. We sell the books for .25 or .50. We have been doing this for four years now and one year we even made close to $1000.00! The teachers love it because they can add to their classroom libraries very inexpensively. Just an idea.

we do a book exchange during read across america week. We send home a permission that parents have to sign stating that they know the book their child is exchanging is gone to a new home. You have to cover your butt...anyways they are allowed to exchange three books. our libraian sets up tables of different age books and the kids get to bring their old books for a new book. during the year she gets donations from families, staff members etc that actually allows every child to get a book even if they didnt bring one in. Alot of families will send in extra books that week and write to give them to a child who needs them. It is really a nice idea, she does go through the books to check condition and content. This will be our third year and it makes a great addition to our celebration week!

Lancaster Mom
Thanks! That is exactly what I was looking for. I have however rethought proposing it because a couple of board members pooh pooh everything I suggest and a couple of other members, it's their last year at our school and they have lost enthusiam for the PTO. I had planned to propose it in conjunction with the RIF reading challenge, but that is fast approaching, so maybe next year.

The info was great and I'm glad yours was a great success!

I don't know if anyone is still looking here for Book Exchange ideas, but we had one last year and it was a great success! We called it a "Book Swap", and we ran it in conjuction with a Family Fun Night, where we played BINGO. Bingo was in the cafeteria, and the book swap was in the hallway. It was very simple to run, it just got a bit hectic at busy times. Basically, we used raffle tickets, and when people came in, they turned in their books and they received one ticket per book, then they went into the cafeteria to play bingo. We did our best (though it was tough) to sort the books by age groups, and we accepted all books, kids and adult. We layed the books out on tables, and once we had them arranged, we announced at the bingo game that the book swap was open to redeem their tickets (one per book of course). People came and went and picked out their "new" books, and went back to bingo. I counted the tickets turned in after the event and we had over 400 books that were swapped that night! Some people of course didn't want as many books as they brought, so we also had around 75 books left over, that were then donated to a charity.

And that was it... you just need some volunteers to help the kids looking for books, and taking their tickets when they picked out their books. It was actually a pretty easy function to run, and we received so many positive comments from it, that it was unbelievable! We will be running ours again in a few weeks along with Bingo again. I hope it will be as successful as last year! Good Luck! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Our Community College has one at Easter. They divide long tables into reading levels. People accept books from incoming people and place them in proper areas. You can take as many books as you bring. Left overs are donated.