My Town Monday: Scholastic Warehouse, Baltimore, MD

As many of you know, I was in Baltimore, MD the week before last. Doing lots of school visits. And....

I got to go on a visit of the Scholastic warehouse in Odenton, Maryland. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the front or the sign or something to start this post off properly.)

Here is a shot of one of the aisles. One of many. The warehouse is about 85,000 square feet. That's big. That's a lot of books.


A RANDOM close-up of one of the shelves.*


Many cases which will be filled with books, then shipped out to schools for their Scholastic Book Fair (SBF for short). A small book fair might get five cases. A large book fair might get 24 cases.


Here's a case, stocked and ready to go. A worker can stock 3.7 cases in an hour. I definitely could not work that fast. Even after a couple of explanations, I never really understood how you know which books go where in which cases.

Oh my. Look at that top shelf. Once again, totally RANDOM.*


Please meet Mara, Scholastic Employee Extraordinaire. Mara undertands perfectly how you know which books go where in which cases. She is also very good natured about being accosted by geeky authors. Mara has actually stocked many cases with i so don't do mysteries.


Part of the conveyer belt that carries the doodads (pencils, bookmarks, erasers, etc.) from this level down to the lower level.


(left to right) Joan Scarff, Field Sales Representative, SBF; me; Lynne Fiorica, Regional Field Sales Manager, SBF

Joan and Lynne: Thank you for the beautiful engraved bookmark, the POUNDS of licorice for the road, the delicious Italian lunch, and the camarderie. It was a delight meeting the both of you.

Thank you also to Patrick Hochberg, Branch Manager (I can't believe I don't have a photo of you!) for the great warehouse tour, for your interesting stories and for answering my inane questions. Of course, one of my first questions was: In all this 85,000 square feet, where is my Sherry??? *

Oh, and can you guess the date of my visit to the Scholastic warehouse?

Please check out the posts by the other My Town Monday participants by clicking here. If you have a MTM post, leave a comment on my blog or on the My Town Monday blog, and I'll add your link. Clair's busy today and asked me to do the link thing.