The media center hosted a book March madness, where students and staff members can vote on their favorite book. According to librarian Jane Dorn, students were already excited about the idea before she even introduced it.  

“Initially when I put up the display people would come in and ask right away when they could vote,” Dorn said. “I hadn’t had anything prepared yet so that moved me forward to try and get this stuff out so that people who were excited about it already could participate.” 

Freshman Micaah Schoenbregr said book madness will be helpful to find new books. 

“It’s nice to see books you’ve read on there and you can see what other books people like and maybe find some new books to read,” Schoenbregr said. 

Dorn said she is hopeful that book madness will have a positive influence on students at Park. 

“People are reading some of the other books because they’re not as popular. Typically, even the most voracious readers haven’t read several, so they’ll check those out,” Dorn said.

English teacher Lindsey Meyer said the book March madness will be a good way to inspire her students to read more. 

“Any conversations about books are good for getting students to read or be excited about reading,” Meyer said. “What I think is exciting about the March Madness book experience is that students can see what titles are popular, and it inspires them to check those books out when they go down to the library. I think seeing titles will get them excited about reading more.”

According to Dorn, COVID-19 has been rough on most celebrations Park has hosted, and book madness is no exception. 

“Last year was not as well received — it was during COVID so it was really challenging. The year before that we had just moved into distance learning, so those two years it was a bit challenging to get the word out to people. The first year I did it, it was very well received and we had a lot of participation,” said Dorn.