Are You Ready for Some Football!?!

I'm playing catch-up...AGAIN...so here's a quick rundown of the football display that has come (and gone)* since my last post!

Football is quite big in my new school community.  Before the first game of the season there was a huge tailgating effort called Dawgapalooza (since we're the bulldogs), there's a huge Homecoming parade (that my uber cute 1st grade daughter was a part of), and many of the male students from elementary school to high school participate in the sport.  As a librarian, you have to know your patrons, so I thought a big football display to kick off the season would be just the ticket.

 A big, glorious display of American football and Football (soccer) books!  I also have some lovely framed Sports Illustrated covers to add a little humor to the display.

 Being from a family that upholds and appreciates the real sport of football (ie, SOCCER), I also had to include that in the display.

 The soccer season for boys is also in the fall! 

 Check out this one.  Man oh man, sometimes I'm super glad this collection hasn't been updated in years.

Just a few photos of the individual shelves of the three panel display.  To come up with the books for the display I just spent some more time in the stacks of our humble library, pulling everything I could find!  Easy!

I had lots of fun making a collage sign to go with the display, too.  I love to do picture collages, so this was a perfect little extra fun activity I gave myself.

The pick up from the display was constant, and the return was also great.  I had a lot of students interested in the books displayed, and they were awesome enough to return them on time, so others could get them.  Yippee!!!



*NOTE:  This display was up from September 15-October 1 as a beginning of season celebration. 

Meet Your New Librarian!

I have been trying to figure out a way to introduce myself to the students.  I wanted to make it part of their orientation powerpoint during their first visit to the library, but I was adding too many slides (and the cable we have for the screen is incompatible with my laptop anyway, so I couldn't do the powerpoint).  Then I thought well, I could put some trinkets up, but the library doesn't have a lot of space for my things yet, since I'm STILL cleaning things out.  Finally...like a bolt of lightening it hit me: DO A DISPLAY [you idiot]!!!  Why I didn't think of that at first, I have no idea.  Even if the students don't get an idea for my pop culture obsessions yet, at least they'll know what books I love.  I hope they can start to get to know more about me through the ones displayed.

Both the fiction and non-fiction collections here are rather dated, but I still did pretty well with what I have to work with.  I have six sections to my display, and they all contain some of my favorites from our humble collection.  The six sections include: picture books, junior novels, classics, young adult novels, graphic novels, and informational texts.  Next to each section I also put a sign, with a picture of some of my other favorites.  Finally, I put a quick blurb about how the students can follow me on Goodreads or Shelfari.

Students have already started taking books from the display, and I've been filling in holes with others I love as they are checked out (to keep it looking pretty).  My choice of Raina Telgemeier graphic novels get checked out quite quickly.  (I've already loved seeing both girls and boys checking out Raina's work.  Before getting a job in a library, I wondered if boys would be checking out her mostly female-centered works.)

Check It Out! Our FIRST Video Book Talk!

It might not be perfect, but here's our first book talk!  I hope to do more as the years go by, and hopefully production value will only be on the rise!  I also want to encourage students to film book talks for the website, too...with proper signed permissions in place, of course.  

This first, original Library Land book talk is on Colleen Gleason's The Clockwork Scarab.  Here are a couple of notes on method:

1.  I downloaded a free teleprompter app for the iPad, so I didn't have to memorize a script.  Once I did this, my anxiety about filming was alleviated 110%.  The app was great, easy to use, and you could control the speed of the text.  It's simply entitled Teleprompter, and I found it through the Apple App Store.
2.  I wanted this video to double as a readers' advisory/read alikes opportunity, too.  That is why I've surrounded myself with genres I've mentioned in the book talk.
3.  Even though I had other props around, I still made sure the book was the highest element on the table.  

I hope you all enjoy!...Or, at least TOLERATE my first attempt. 

First Lines

A couple of weeks ago I created my best bulletin board/display combo to date.  It was so much fun, and everything came together in a totally pleasing way. 

I love first lines of books.  When I was a freshman in college, looking forward to my first semester as an undergraduate at the great University of Illinois, one of my friends came over and looked at all of the literature I had to read for that semester.  I was taking a British Literature class, so there was lots of Austens, Brontes, and Kiplings in the mix.  She said she always loved to read the first paragraphs of books to imagine and predict what might happen.  This has stuck with me for almost two decades (!), and I employed this strategy for my newest board/display combo.

I combed through books in our fiction collection and pulled titles at random.  I read the FIRST LINE only.  Was it interesting, intriguing, gross, outlandish???  Would it get the attention of students?  Most importantly...would it fit on a single piece of paper for the bulletin board?  ;)  I found many titles, but I knew the board wouldn't be able to hold very many, so I narrowed my selection down to a dozen.  As always, I tried to get different genres, time periods, and authors represented.  Then came the fun part.

I recently created an account at Canva.  This is an amazing place to create posters, signage, and any other type of advertisement you could want.  And, it's free.  (I mentioned Canva a few weeks ago in a post.  For more info, see that post.)  I found a simple, yet bold, option to put the first line of the book, along with the author, title, and publication year.  I printed these and put them on the bulletin board.

 The small "bubble burst" sign at top center directs the students to come inside and find the book that matches their 

favorite First Line.

Next, I displayed all of the books on one of our display areas inside the library.  If a line on the bulletin board outside catches a student's attention, they can come inside, find the book on the display, and check it out.

So far I've seen several students looking at the bulletin board and reading the lines aloud, but so far none of checked out any books.  This is an extremely busy time of the year for these Uni students, so I'm not offended.  This was a great board/display combo to put together, and one I will try to replicate in my future place of employment.   

Bulletin Board Fun

It's March.  I've been at the Uni High Library since August.  I just found a third bulletin board to play with.  It only took me seven months, I only pass it as I walk into the library everyday, but I mustn't fret.  No, that wouldn't do.  I just need to be thankful I've found it now and have fun coming up with themes for it until I leave in late May. 

The first totally fun theme for this third mini board (cause it is wee) is Library Memes!  Everybody's favorite, right???  RIGHT!  There are way too many fun Library Memes out there, and I fell down the rabbit hole while looking at them, so I just had to choose a few to go up on the board.

I picked some basic black construction paper, so the memes would stand out more, a fun boarder, and then started stapling like mad.  It was a quick board, a FUN board, and I think it makes the entryway to the library look even better.  I just wish I would have realized that was a board seven months ago!  Wait...I said I wouldn't dwell on that.

I think the next thing I'll post on that board will be Celebrities Reading.  Oh, yeah...that will be AWESOME, too! 

Fancy a February Display?

Oh, I have to admit...I kind of REALLY loved putting together our two February displays.

Our Author Spotlight is on THREE authors this month.  I knew I wanted to have a female author.  I was super stoked when I found three awesome YA female authors with birthdays in February: Meg Cabot, Donna Jo Napoli, and Jane Yolen.  I love the varied styles and themes of these authors' works, but they all have one thing in common: they champion female characters and give girls something amazing to read.

I didn't want to do a humdrum Valentine's Day display.  I'm not anti-Valentine's Day: it's all about the LOVE, people!  But, at the same time, I didn't want to do drippy, sappy romances, or anti-romances, or anything like that.  Then, I finally hit on it: BOOKS WE LOVE.  Since Valentine's IS all about love (as I previously stated), I wanted students and staff to celebrate the books they love.  I sent out a couple of emails asking for titles.  All that was needed was a simple reply: no summary, no huge effort, just the title.  I think this helped drum up initial support.  

I think the display looks great.  I wanted to give props to all the books that I was sent, even if they aren't in the Uni collection.  I took old magazine boxes, attached construction paper to dress them up a bit, and made little book bouquets for the ones we don't have in our onsite collection.  I think these book bouquets add an extra fun element to the display, and if someone is interested in those books, we can still get them from another library.

"Book Bouquets" on the top shelf.

 We put our three picks on the bottom shelf, so the students could see their peers' selections easier.

The coolest part about Books We Love?  As more and more students notice it, they want to add their own favorites to the display.  I love this participation!  Yippee!!!

Winter Reads

All of a sudden it's winter in these here parts.  We're bundling up, most are cursing the light snowfall that's already occurred (not me!), and it's the perfect time to talk winter reads.  Cause, seriously, what is better than curling up with a good book, a hot cup of something, and a fleece blanket?  Not much, I can tell you that!  (I'm just sad I don't get to do that too much anymore.)

At the beginning of the semester I saw a bulletin board on Pinterest with the title "I Read a Latte!"  Of course, I've had it in the back of mind to use once it got chilly.  I thought I'd save it for January, but it was just too good not to do now.

Here's the method...I found several lists of winter reads--Goodreads, other Pinterest boards, and my own mind (ETHAN FROME!  THE SHINING!  LITTLE WOMEN!).  I used these as a starting point.  After creating a list of chilly reads (that included MANY genres!), I made sure we had the books on the list in our Uni Library.  Then, the real fun began!  I hunted down book covers of the titles, and I got to make them into lil MUGS!  That's right: MUGS!  For lattes...GET IT!?!

Because I was too cheap to buy new border, I just used a book border I already had.  I justified this to myself, because the title is "I Read A LATTE," so a border with a lot of genres present makes sense.  (I do really wish I had a border with snowflakes, though.  But, like I said, not a lot of cash what with kids' birthdays and holidays coming up.)  The final touch was procuring Starbucks cups this morning for the board.  Those were free (as they should be with all the money I spend there). 

This is one of my favorite boards yet.  I hope you like it, too!

Food & Gaiman

I made a diary entry about how "unfortunate" I was to create displays about food and Neil Gaiman.  I hope you know I was kidding!  I just realized I never posted the finished products.

I've known since the beginning of the year that I would do a food display for the Thanksgiving season.  I had fun just roaming around our collection pulling books that had to do with food: I pulled fiction, graphic novels, memoirs, and non-fiction.  I couldn't fit all of the cookbooks we have, so I tried to put a good variety.  Praise be to the heavens that the Uni Collection does have what I think is my most favorite food book of all time: The Gallery of Regrettable Food.  When I worked at Pages for All Ages, we used to pour over this book at the Info Desk.  It is one of my all-time ultimate favorites.

I also made some signage for the display, encouraging students to ask for help if they need to find more food books or want to search for them at one of the public libraries.  I had to use a still from Oliver for this...of course.  This is also how I got a photo of Jamie Oliver included.

The Neil Gaiman display also turned out well and included signage.  Since he's the author of the month, I included info about him: vital stats, his work, his social media sites, etc.  It was great fun collecting his books for the display, but a lot of his books are checked out--no shocker there. 

He's one of the biggest advocates for libraries, and for some great personal stories he has about libraries and being a book nerd, check out these links:

• Libraries are Cultural "Seed Corn"
• Reading Agency Lecture

ALL the New Fiction

Remember all of the awesome new fiction books we got last week?  Well, we got even MORE this week!  We have no room for all of the new books in the New Books display.  So, Amy wanted to try something new.

I took a portion of the new books and put them on the "back book display."  This is where I put most of our bigger displays.  We want to see if the books go faster from the back display as opposed to the New Books display that the students see as they walk into the library.

I've been creating informal tally sheets for each display to keep track of which books are checked out from each display.  I've done the same thing for this "display race."  Both displays have some pretty spectacular new books, so I hope a lot of books get checked out.

WHO WILL WIN???

VS.

For the back display, I did create some signage, so students would know what was up.  I even decided to use some Snoopy, because new acquisitions always make me want to do my happy dance.  Winning.

Finally, our awesome library technician, Paul, came up with some great yellow tags to put in each new book to flag it for students. 

Students here at Uni work so hard in their classes, but several do come in to check out books for pleasure reading.  A lot of them tend to check out the same authors: J.R.R. Tolkien, Tamora Pierce, Kristin Cashore.  All are fantastic, but I hope all of this teamwork to push the new books works, because they are awesome and deserve to be read, too!

Under the Influence

A couple of weeks ago I sat and thought and thought and THOUGHT about a new bulletin board, but nothing was coming to mind.  I must have thought about it for over two hours.  By the end of my think tank time, my head hurt.  I got home and told my husband of my toiling, and in two seconds flat, he said, "Why not do a board about author influences?  You know, like what other authors have influenced authors?"

Yeah.  He's that good.   I was in awe.  I don't know if that was collaboration, though: just my husband being awesome and thinking of a great idea off the top of my head after I had tried to do the same thing for hours. 

This was the most in-depth and detailed bulletin board I've done yet, so I'll try not to bore you too much with the method.  It took a lot of little steps to get this board done!

• STEP 1: Create a list of relevant YA authors that students at Uni actually check out with semi-regularity, and also include new authors that they should get to know.
• STEP 2: Start reading and researching the authors to find out what has influenced them.  The influences range from TV to art to music to other authors (of course).
• STEP 3: Create a list of what/who influenced whom.
• STEP 4: Hunt down and print pictures of all the authors and influences.
• STEP 5: NEVER LOSE YOUR LIST of influences and try to keep them organized.
• STEP 6: Start creating your board.  Space out your authors, try to group the influences by type (I have TV in one area, movies in another area, etc). 
• STEP 7: After everything is on the board, get lots of strings and lots of thumb tacks and start creating your lines of influence. 

The result might look something like this:

In the end, I'm kind of satisfied with the board.  It looks too crazy-busy for me.  I wonder if the idea would work better with a bigger board?  Because I LOVE the idea, and I'd love to do it again.  I had fun researching all of the authors, and I feel like I know them better now, but I don't think the board is having the WOWZA effect I hoped it would.  I really wish I had colored yarn for the lines, but I needed to get the board done, and all we had in the library was butcher string.  HOWEVER, this was definitely a learning project, so even if it's not perfect, it was still a great experience.

NEW BOOKS!!!!!

Oh, Mama Mia!  Look at all of those new books we got this week!  It's always exciting to get new books, but when we get this many at one time, my head reels.  Not because it's a lot of work to process them, wrap them, put them on our blog, etc.  Oh, no, not because of that.  Because I want to read them all!!!  (Mo' Librarian Problems, yo.)

Whenever we get new fiction in for our collection, I enter the title, author, call number, and publisher synopsis into Uni's What Should I Read Next? blog.  It's good fun, but it usually ends up in at least ten new books added to my Want to Read List.  Here are the top two on my list after this acquisition haul:

There's also a new book that shares a name with an awesome song from the 80s, and if you don't know the song, you shouldn't be my friend or be reading this.  The book, however, has NOTHING to do with high school, John Hughes, or breakfast.  It's about a town where every four years a child is released from jail and kills people.  So...yeah.

I also get to enter new graphic novels into our online collection that we keep on LibraryThing.  I am constantly trying to become more knowledgeable about GN's, and I still have no clue about Manga (what's good, what's isn't, etc).  I am making strides in the GN arena, though, and a lot of it is thanks to this task I have.  

We usually get a few good GN's with every new haul, and this time I wasn't disappointed.  I can't wait to check out the new DC offering, Black Canary and Zatanna (love it when the females are let out to play), and Mimi Pond's Over Easy, (about the 70s, greasy spoons, and drugs), looks right up my bleak alley preferences.  

When all of the books are entered, blogged, posted, etc (you know, all that work that makes me feel like I'm a real librarian already), they get to fill the New Book Rack.  This rack, which Amy longs to get rid of, looks pretty nice when it's all filled to the brim with new acquisitions!   

It's All Hocus Pocus

It's that time of year, folks: HALLOWEEN SEASON!  We already talked a little bit about Halloween Storytime, so let's talk Halloween Displays today.

Upon receiving a new shipment of bright and shinies which included THREE witch-centered books, Supervisor Amy had the idea of doing a witch book display, and who would I be to argue with my supervisor?  It was too much fun putting together this great, fun, seasonal display.

Amy wanted Katherine Howe's Conversion to be the focal point of our display, and she also wanted to surround it with titles about or of the Salem Witch Trials.  (Conversion looks AMAZING by the way.  We've already had someone check it out, so 1) the display is working, and 2) I'll have to wait to read it.  That's a good Librarian Problem.)  This is another great display that allowed me to find a variety of genres for the pale, green shelves: fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, and a play this time!

We didn't have everything that I would have included if I had access to ALL the books, so I made a small sign to go with the display.  On that I included Quentin Blake's version* of witches, some of Harry Potter's finest witches+ (McGonagall, Hermione, and that evil Bellatrix!), and some other classic witchy women (Willow, Galinda, Meryl Streep's witch from the upcoming big screen adaptation of Into the Woods, and the Wicked Witch of the West*).  And, OF COURSE, the sign HAD to include the Sanderson Sisters from the 1993 Halloween classic Hocus Pocus.



* Keep in mind, we are a high school library with limited collection space, so we don't have Roald Dahl's The Witches or L. Frank Baum's Oz collection.
+ I've already included Harry Potter in two displays, so I opted for no Potter this time.  And, let's face it: which one would I have chosen?  Probably Deathly Hallows, cause Mama Molly is BADASS in that one, but that was included in my first display of the year.