It’s that time: Summer Reading Club time. Knowing that staff will have little time to spare over the next couple of months, my librarian in charge of displays came up with a couple that will be super easy to keep filled.
Our bulletin board:
Miss A made a bulletin board to advertise the Summer Reading Club. She made it 3-dimensional, using packing materials and leftover plastic bugs from a previous Summer Reading Club. I love that it’s an extra way to get “Summer Reading Club” on the minds of our patrons. (OKAY, this beautiful bulletin board that she made may not be easy, but we’ve had it up since mid-May, so maybe it’s a little easier just in that it’s something we could do in advance, before the crowds started coming in. Also, your bulletin board does NOT have to be this elaborate!)
We thought about displaying books that go along with the summer theme (“Dig Into Reading”), but after some discussion we decided on something easier: “Books Your Community Digs”. I definitely borrowed this idea from another librarian; it’s something that came from a conference, I believe. We’re highlighting books that are popular in our community, and it’s super easy to refill since all we need to do is take books that have been recently returned from the circulation carts.
Our other Children’s Room displays are “Staff Favorites” (another one that’s easy to fill, especially since we all love to promote our favorites) and a display of money/financial books for a “Dollars and Sense” program we do in conjunction with one of our local banks. This year we’ve finally gotten smart, putting green tape on the spines of the money books so that our shelvers can automatically refill the display as the books come back in.
I’m all about making things easy in the summer, so easy-to-refill displays are just one way to simplify during our busiest season.
What do you do to make things easier in the summer?
— Abby Johnson, Children’s Manager
New Albany-Floyd County Public Library
New Albany, IN
http://www.abbythelibrarian.com
Rebecca B.
Thank you so very much for this post! I’ve implemented this idea at our library with great success. I even featured/linked back to this in my own blog. Cheers!