Bulletin Board: Book Share Take a Book…Leave a Book Submitted by Nicholas Turner, Eastern Washington University I just put up a new bulletin board that’s been pretty successful. I call it Take a Book, Leave a Book. There’s a series of cardboard pockets that you can fit small-to-medium sized books into. I put some of my favorite books in most of them, and left a few empty. Residents were free to come and take books, with no pressure to return them within a certain time frame, or return them at all. The only request was for them to contribute to the wall with some of their favorite books. I’ve attached the instructions I posted with the board and some pictures of how it looked initially. I’ve run into a couple of difficulties with this bulletin board I think other people should be aware of. Books can be expensive, I put in books I found at used book stores, and probably cost me $50 for around 15 books (I held some back to add later if the wall got a little barren). Consider getting books at yard sales/library sales/garage sales over the summer). I started with colorful paper pockets, but those didn’t hold up and I had to replace them with soda pop boxes held up with staples and hot glue. Most residents don’t bring extra copies of their favorite books to school to give away. I put my board up a couple of weeks before Spring break and am leaving it until the end of April so that residents will have the opportunity to go home to pick up books to add to it. Idea: You could mix this idea up by instead having it be for mix-tapes (or CDs). Residents could cut their own mixes to put on a bulletin board and share their tastes in music. The biggest advantage of this is that residents are more likely to have a music collection on their computers they can burn to disc at any time and add. Idea: Over the summer you could go to garage sales and get tons of books or CDs at low cost.

Directions for Board: Print and post on your board… Take a Book, Leave a Book The idea of this bulletin is to share our favorite literary treasures. Feel free to take any book from the board with no obligation to return it. Read it at your leisure, keep it, pass it on, return it to the board, whatever. Please contribute back to the board with one of your personal favorite books, with no expectation that you’ll get it back. Use the empty pockets to share a book with others. What this is not: A place to ditch books you had to buy for class and aren’t worth selling. Please only put in books you would personally recommend.