The Bookroom

By Claire Hines, Year 11

Situated on the ground floor of the Grand Batiment, the Bookroom supplies all levels of secondary school (over 500 students) in all subjects with novels and textbooks. The facility also provides school supplies like stationery and copybooks, as well as P.E. clothes, and is the place we go to charge our student cards. It sounds simple, but behind the scenes is a vast amount of organization, communication, and flexibility. How does one person manage to do so much?

The Book room’s priority is of course books, hence the name. But how does one employee get hold of a book for every student in each subject? Topics like Mathematics and Sciences will of course only require one textbook in the entirety of the year if that, but language departments like English, French, or Spanish will ask for up to ten novels a year including exercise books.

Therefore, there is always a constant demand and an ongoing flow of emails and pink slips ordering dozens of books. The employee goes through them, and orders the books requested. But how does she do so? Amazon, the primary site for online purchases is very efficient if you need the quick delivery of one or two items. But when someone needs seventeen books or more, this is no longer a viable solution. So, other online sites for purchase must be visited until the correct edition is found and the number required is accounted for. Sometimes, when the item is out of print or unavailable, she has to order a few from several different providers in different countries to come up with the total number. This involves a lot of flexibility and good communication skills.

Once they arrive, these books must be unpacked and put away carefully so as to be accessible at a moment’s notice when she is asked for them. They are classed by the department and by the teacher and must be counted upon arrival. And if a book is definitively out of print, it can be printed off at the school print shop, though this is done very rarely as it involves asking permission from the editor or author, and assuring that they are used for private use only.

Then, there are the school supplies that must also be ordered depending on the demand to ensure that the shelves are always stocked and restocked. The Bookroom provides stationery, calculators, paper, copy books, binders, and also P.E. clothes. Also, a stock of used copies of novels in good condition is also kept in case a student loses or doesn’t have one and needs to buy another. This enables old copies to be reused instead of being thrown out and limits the number of orders.

All of the above requires a lot of organization and is not being made easier by supply problems due to strikes in France, the aftermath of Covid, and much else.

So next time you get something from the Bookroom, think about how much time and effort went into getting it to you.