Bulletin Board Display Ideas

 Every teacher is required to have a bulletin board display (Standard Based Bulletin Boards) for their classroom, where the display is changed every six weeks.  Of course, there is more to it than just changing.  They have to put the TEKS covered, feedback on student work, highlight work that was above and beyond, etc etc etc...It takes a LOT of work and time.  And the library?  Nope...didn't get a bulletin board. So I resorted to using the windows of the library, but after awhile, it looked...trashy...just because I have a LOT of windows (think fishbowl).  The displays blocked the view and would curl if not taped correctly, and don't even get me started on Scotch tape and the remnants left behind.

Then, lo and behold!  A teacher had an extra bulletin board and asked if I would adopt it!  The clouds parted, the room filled with light and a choir of church boys sang a song of praise!  My mind started whirling about what kind of displays I would create, and best of all (one of those catch-22 things) I didn't have any guidelines but creativity on my side.  So off I went!  First place I looked was the listserv, where I found people who had collaboratively worked on booklists with similar themes (Thank you thank you thank you for sharing!!!).  Then it was onto Pinterest to see what else was out there (wow...AMAZED at the creativity!).  And have you ever heard of dumpster diving?  Well, I kind of did that too.  I'd see something I thought would be a great display and took it out of the trash and into the workroom.  Nothing like cardboard for 3-D effects!!

So then it was time to think about what kind of boards I'd like to do.  The ones starred are ones I took queues from through collaborative posts online.  Then I thought I better start thinking of my own themes (so use, borrow, share, post any of these ideas - it's what librarians do, right?)

*August-September:  Students Recommend:  hand out colorful shapes of post-its and ask students to write their favorite book of all time and their name.  Put these hodge-podge on the bulletin board (I had to use an outside window for this one and it looks better in person than in picture form)

*October:  Off With Their Heads!  Their Heads Are Off!:  a split bulletin board of books of bodies with no heads and those with heads and no bodies.  For Halloween, of course!

November:  Hardcopies to E-books:  another split bulletin board display of books in hardcopy format, and the other on e-book format using dumpster diving treasure! (got a poster from vendors and cut out the little book covers; pasted them on the front of the Mac cutout to look like apps). 

December:  Flurry of Series:  series books to get you through the Christmas break.  I'm even thinking of putting the books on snowflake cutouts

January: New Year, New Books: Display the newest titles in the library as well as a list of up and coming titles for the year



Do I even need to ask what I'm doing to February?  Again, dumpster diving for cardboard to glue streamer paper onto heart shapes

March: March Madness: It's all about basketball titles and...I'm struggling with this month.  You know why?  Here's what's commemorated for this month (from Wikipedia)
Irish-American Heritage Month
National Celery Month
National Colo-rectal Cancer Awareness Month
National Essential Tremor Awareness Month
National Nutrition Month
National Professional Social Work Month
National Women's History Month  ( I could definitely work with this topic!)
National kidney month

April: Eggstravaganza!  Only books about pregnancy and babies...JUST KIDDING!  Taking Time for Tayshas: Put up our state's recommended YA list, including annotations (Public School Library Month!)

May:  May I Recommend?:  This time I'll put up not only great YA reads I recommend, but also put out titles and covers of recommended reading for the summer.

So there they are in all of their glory, accentuated with "unique finds."  If you have any bulletin board ideas you'd like to share, please leave a comment :)  

Cool Book Display!

Collaboration can create amazing things.  You can share, contribute, throw out ideas and brainstorm.  There can be nothing better than working with colleagues that could be miles away or just down the road. 

So, when I was thinking of a display, this collaborative list of titles came into play.  There are at least six displays in the library and on the door, each book cover has been printed in color with "I FEEL LIKE" centered in the middle.  Did this to the coffee shop windows attached to the library as well :)

And a well-deserved kudos to my library assistant who helped me with this display and all the other ones as well :)

Genre displays - Part tres

here are the rest of my genres I have in the library:
  link:  http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/5187533/Novels_in_Verse



 link:  http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/5187661/Real_Life_Reads


link:  http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/5187705/Classic_and_Adult_Fiction

Genre Displays....again

Finishing up the ones I hadn't already done. Here they are : )

Genre Displays

Got this idea from a very dear friend....it sure looks a LOT better than just plain signage! I'll post another lot tomorrow

And this is what a weeded book looks like afterwards...

These are just two of the many art displays compliments of the amazing art staff we have on campus!

My experiment with color...

So, yesterday I finally put up my displays by color. Have seven different colors and after the first day, the reds and the purple bookcovers were disappearing. Interestingly enough, today a lot of students came in to check out books as a class. And visually, they're catching on....
Here's what I had (and now have to find more!!)

The impact of displays

So...I think we all change around our displays. At the library I work in, I have books on the shelves, on floating displays and have separate shelving for the new books that come in. I go with different displays, the latest being the TAYSHAS titles. Before that, it was all about spring and spring break books.

Been doing the in-shelf displays too, like B&N does, with one book of a set sitting on top of them. Those have been eye-catchers as well. And it makes the shelving look pretty cool too - more like bookstore than typical library.

This past week I decided to do something different. I created a .wmv of my booktalk animotos that feature covers and a short blurb for the last two booktalks as well as this upcoming one and displayed it on a computer screen on the circ desk. Beside it, I have some of the books that are being shown on-screen. It did my heart good to see kids stop and watch...then go over and get a book. LOVED IT!

And then the playaways came in. Put those on display and in one morning, one display got wiped out! Yippee!! What caught their eye was the orange plastic covers and what exactly they were. I should do a side-by-side of book to playaway as well. Will work on that one tomorrow!

But as I commented on in a previous post, I'm going to do an experiment with color. Each shelf will get popular YA books and they're going to be by color. Displays on one shelf will be red, another shelf will be blue, another white, another black. Since these are more prominent they reflect school colors. Different displays around the library will be orange, yellow and purple. I'm going to see which one catches reader's eyes....

Whitewashing....colorwashing...and it's not about laundry

It's a hot topic right now, whitewashing on bookcovers and one I most definitely agree with, MUST be changed!! And that's when my mind started to wander. This is such a far departure from the serious topic, but if you've ever experienced a mind-wandering state, you'll understand. If not, then you must try it! Here's where my mind took me....
I was reading posts about whitetwashing, and all of a sudden, I saw something while sitting in the library. I saw colorwashing on bookcovers. I saw a cover and said, "Oh! That reminds me of another book I read." and when I thought why, it's because of the covers had the same color on it! I think purple is the new black. If you find a book with purple, it will probably be about something spooky or fantastical...
Have you seen any colorwashing of genres lately?

February Display

I liked the idea someone posted about the Love Me, Love Me Not display for their library, and am using that as a theme as well. I'm also thinking about putting on there, "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, Can I Love Him? (those books with the supernatural bent in them).
And then on the non-fiction display, I'll be displaying books on China and their culture...did you know that Chinese New Year is the same day as Valentine's Day?

I'll post my list tomorrow : )

images: creativecommons.org
http://www.flickr.com/photos/qthomasbower/3657889982 (heart)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh/4130968240 (dragon)

YA genre that gets overlooked and a random thought...

I've looked through lists and lists of YA suggestions and very seldom do I find short story collections for YA. I've read some really good ones recently, and I plan on booktalking them - two I've read and LOVED were Geektastic and Up all Night. There are some pretty heavy-hitting YA writers on them, and their individual voices stand up to their novels.

(photo I took of my fortune today!)

So, here's my random thought I had today. After church, we went out to eat at a local Chinese restaurant. And after we got our ticket, my family, of course, always read out our fortunes we got. And then it hit me - wouldn't it be SO COOL if some writes got together, broke open a fortune cookie, and wrote a story around their fortune? I think that would be awesome because you never know what you'll get and the stories you could come up with! When I read mine this afternoon, I was thinking about what it would be about. I should just write it down.... : )

Anyway....

Here's a compiled list of YA short story collections I've read and enjoyed:

Up All Night: Six Sunsets, Six Stories

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd

666: The Number of the Beast

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Stories about Falling Out of Love by Four Incredible Authors

Every Man for Himself: Ten Short Stories About Being a Guy

Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales

Twice Told: Original Stories

Trapped!: Cages of Mind and Body

Who Am I Without Him: Short Stories about Girls and the Boys in their Lives

Magic in the Mirrorstone: Tales of Fantasy