Creating Attractive Library Displays

March 10-12th (School Library)

This week I put in substantial time (12 hours total) thinking of ways to update the look of our middle school library and attract more readers.  My academic supervisor came to visit our library on Wednesday, March 12th and had some great ideas!  I'm partial to historical fiction, and had already been leaning towards developing a reading 'nook' for the middle schoolers with historical fiction novels.  Although I have a curator background I've been afraid to apply that creativity towards the school library until now for various reasons.  It helps to have other library professionals validate the work you do and that validation is something I've been lacking until now.   That was definitely the spark I needed :)

The month of April is big for school libraries.  April is National Poetry Month and National School Library week is April 13-19th (http://www.ala.org/conferencesevents/celebrationweeks/natlibraryweek).  Ironically the school is closed for spring vacation the week of April 13-19th.  However, I'm doing all I can to promote the poetry and historical fiction collections to tie in with the national celebrations.  I purchased a few posters off of the American Library Association website with the intent of created a Helen Keller living history/poetry display.  I'll put up a few famous quotes from historical writers and poets - however I'm going to have the kids post their own favorite writings/quotes and make the display interactive.  I'm also going the extra mile for book displays and plan to continue re-shelving the fiction collection to make the books more accessible for the students.  As a library technician with very limited hours in the school library, I can only accomplish so much.   Processing and re-wrapping of the books continues and so does patron circulation.