At Sorensen, a novel idea: book vending machine
Rakes
Sorensen School of the Arts and Humanities is hoping to add a book vending machine like this one to its campus to encourage young readers. If anyone has an old vending machine to donate or wants to help with the project, contact library manager Lisa Rakes at lrakes@cdaschools.org or at 208-664-2822. (Photo via CNN)
COEUR d’ALENE — Kids love putting tokens in machines and watching prizes drop right into their hands.
When those prizes are books, that’s a win for everyone.
After seeing a social media post about a school in New Jersey that made a book vending machine a reality for its students, Sorensen Magnet School of the Arts and Humanities library manager Lisa Rakes is optimistic her school could do the same.
“What a great idea,” Rakes said. “How fun to get kids excited about reading. I just thought, ‘What a neat thing for the kids.’”
Vending machines that provide snacks for the mind rather than the belly have been popping up everywhere in recent years. Machines that vend free books were placed across New York’s six boroughs during the summer, and Leonardo Elementary School across the river in Middletown, N.J., made history when its book vending machine was the first of its kind to be installed in the Garden State in late September.
Rather than use monetary currency, books in these machines can be bought using tokens that are earned by students. At Sorensen, the machine would be placed outside of the library for students to use at their convenience, and the books would be theirs to keep.
“(Leonardo Elementary) used it as an incentive,” Rakes said. “The kids would use a special gold coin that would be given out as an award for good behavior or something by teachers.”
Rakes said the tokens could potentially be bought and given to students as gifts or surprises.
But taking money out of the vending transaction would level the playing field for students of all income levels, so no matter how much they have in their piggy banks, they can shine at school and be rewarded with the gift that will give their entire lives — literacy.
“It brings it back to an equity kind of thing where it’s not the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots,’” Rakes said. “I think it would be kind of a cool thing for any kid to be able to have a gold coin and be able to go choose a book.”
The big thing to consider in this project is cost. The Leonardo machine cost about $4,000, so Rakes is looking into how the one for Sorensen could be funded. The hope is that some tinker or machine collector in the community has one on hand that he or she would be willing to donate so it could be converted into a book vending machine.
“That’s probably the only way I’m going to be able to afford something like this,” she said.
She said she would love to collaborate with a group like Gizmo-CDA that could help with the technical side of things once the machine is donated or purchased.
To help Sorensen’s book vending machine dream come true, contact Rakes at lrakes@cdaschools.org or at 208-664-2822.