Elementary students publish book at PSU Bookstore

A class of third-grade students from Corvallis came to the Portland State Bookstore last month to use the newly adopted Odin Ink publishing system.

The book, “Sparky the Eagle,” tells the story of a bald eagle living at the nearby Chintimini Wildlife Center that the students of the school adopted. All the proceeds from book sales will go toward Sparky’s care.

Lori Tubbs, the teacher at Mt. View Elementary who undertook the project, explained that the school began sponsoring Sparky’s care and adopted him as their school mascot in 2005, but for the last couple of years the students have not been doing many fundraisers.

She hopes that this book will “keep his story alive for the students at Mt. View.”

Tubbs became involved with the PSU Odin Ink program when a Hewlett Packard employee told her about the specialized printer in the PSU Bookstore.

Because the entire publishing process takes place in the bookstore, the students were able watch the progress of the their book from printing, to trimming the pages, to gluing the binding and attaching the cover.

The printer, called the R85 (or the Raptor), is Packard last summer. The printer allows anyone with a PDF copy of a book to print and bind it with a cardstock cover at an affordable price.

PSU Bookstore Manager Ken Brown said that the original purpose for bringing in the printer was to reduce the cost of text and course books for PSU students.

The bookstore works with a few mid-tier publishers to produce small batches of books using the printer, which reduces shipping costs and excess inventory.

“We can print at a very advantageous cost to the person who’s creating,” Brown said.

This advantageous pricing has attracted writers and artists from PSU and the community. Dylan Burke, a bookstore employee who works with the Raptor, said, “More and more graduate students come to us for their printing.”

Although there are two other schools in the nation that employ the Raptor, Burke said PSU is producing more work for people off the street than either of the other universities.

Brown said that the printer could alternately be used by individual professors who want a customized text for their class.

The bookstore is currently working with Cleveland High School to produce their literary arts publication.

“It’s been a very, very cool project,” Brown said. “Self-publishing really took over and created a revenue stream for us.”

Mt. View Elementary received a grant from the Corvallis Art Center to make 300 copies of the book, the largest quantity printed yet by Odin Ink.

So far the students have raised over $250 from book sales. The books can be found in the PSU Bookstore, on Mt. View’s website and eventually through the Chintimini Wildlife Center website.  ?