After battling the elements to get to the branch (snow, snow, and more snow), I spent several days last week changing my seasonal displays.
I am lucky to work (and live) in a truly diverse community that has for a long time featured large Catholic and Jewish populations and now boasts a growing African American community along with immigrant groups from Turkey and southern India. I’m always excited to feature diverse books, and offering mirrors and windows to a diversifying neighborhood always seems very worthwhile.
Nothing makes this clearer than my holiday displays. I recently dismantled my Lunar New Year, Valentine’s Day, and Presidents’ Day books, plumped up my Black History Display, and looked ahead to upcoming holidays…and what a plethora are approaching! Not to forget:
February 26th: Purim
March 14th: Pi Day
March 17th: St. Patrick’s Day
March 20th: Norwuz
March 27th: First day of Passover
March 28th: Holi
April 1st: April Fool’s Day
April 4th: Easter
April 12th: First Day of Ramadan
April 22nd: Earth Day
April 30th: El día de los niños/El día de los libros
May 5th: Cinco de Mayo
May 9th: Mother’s Day
May 31st: Memorial Day
It was nice to think about all these spring holidays while looking out the window into a full-fledged blizzard!
Now, I personally don’t celebrate all of these, but every year I make sure my work calendar has these holidays marked so that I can ensure the displays are timely. These books fly off the shelves—I am constantly looking at returns to replenish. The displays are good for customer outreach, for introducing holidays to others who don’t celebrate them, and for circulation!
This post addresses the core competencies of I. Commitment to Client Group: Cultural Competence, II. Reference and User Services: Overcome Barriers of Exclusion or Circumstances and IV. Knowledge, Curation and Management of Materials: Maintain Diverse Collections and a Collection Development Policy.