Display Ideas

Book Display Ideas

One of my favorite things to do is to have a good book display. I pull idea from Pinterest or my own imagination. Here are just a few of the display ideas I've had and why I chose to do that display at that time.

Museum of Old Technology

I'm a little upset at myself for not taking more pictures of this awesome display that took over the whole front half of my library! What didn't I take more pictures?!

Well. . . . .anyway. . . .over the course of about a month, I collected a variety of old pieces of technology from our own dusty clutter and from our staff. I put out at e-mail from them and received back all kinds of amazing pieces of old technology. From walkmans to record players to gameboys to and original Nintendo, it was fantastic to bring back the past and let these kids experience it first hand.

The most popular part of the display was an old school TV cart we wired up with an original NES and Atari. Right next to this was an original Gameboy and GameGear. Every day at lunch, before school, and after school, students played their way through a variety of games. It made quite the scene to watch a group of kids so intensely involved with a game of Tetris in black and white on a Gameboy. It was also fun to switch out the games and have students excited to see what was coming next. Super successful display! And fun to put on for the students!

Open House Movie Trailer Display

Being six months pregnant and having to stay late for open house as a librarian is *not* the most fun thing in the world. However, just a few days before I had received 10 Chromebooks for the library. I had previously decided not to do anything for open house because I was too darn tired. Then I got inspired.

I pulled up a variety of movie trailers, and my goal was this. . . .to get the trailers to play full screen and loop for the entire open house night. It's really simple. . . . just pull up the video and double right click on the video. Then just press "Loop." The video will then loop over and over until you tell it to stop. Pretty simple.

Then I just attached headphones and a few signs I had leftover from a previous display. I added some signage on the different tables, tried to make sure the book was next to the trailer, and decided each one should have a theme. One table was "Tearjerkers." Another was "True Stories."

I managed to use all of the Chromebooks and all the front tables. Way to go on last minute displays!!

Buried Treasure in the Library

I loved how this display came out! I wanted a display that was about the books that used to be popular but seem to collect dust these days. Lucky for me, my assistant has been here in the library for a LONG time, and she was able to help me pick up some favorites from years past.

This one required a little bit of Amazon ordering. In total, it was only about $20. I first bought some gems to scatter around the display. I had some coins I actually broght from home that we've used in Mardi Gras parties along with some beads I've used for that as well. In addition to the gems, I bought a pirate flag and treasure chests.

The display went over nicely! It got students to pick up some books that otherwise would never have gone out. Our big user library patrons loved getting into new series that have been pushed aside by the dystopian craze! Especially popular was Michael Grant's Gone series.

All You Need is Love

February always seems to call for a love inspired display. In 2014, our theme was "All You Need is Love."

This one was fairly simple with just a trip to the dollar store to pick up various heart shaped things. I used PicMonkey to create the signage.

The books pulled were just books about teenage love or just love in general. Really simple and quick display for Valentine's Day!

Book Ornament Contest

This was one of my very favorite displays I've ever done! I've always seen things in Pinterest for ornaments with book shreds inside of them AND I've seen a contest where a book is shredded into a jar and students have to guess the book.

So I decided to combine the two ideas! I went through and found various classic books that were beat up and could be discarded anyway. Then, I put various pages through our paper shredder. Next, I got from JoAnn's Fabrics these plastic clear ornaments. Then it was just a matter of putting the book shreds into the ornaments and attaching a tag! I made sure that the shreds had clues like character names and places so it was somewhat easy to guess.

We already usually displayed out fiber optic tree in the center of the library. Now it was really the center of attention.

The English teachers completely embraced this and even offered extra credit for students to come down to do the contest. It really got students to think about the books in a different and fun way.

Fall For a Good Book

The first display of the 14-15 school year was "Fall for a Good Book." It was a little more labor intensive though than other displays.

My first year in the library, I bought a Cricut for us to use for displays and other projects. For this project, I dusted it off and put it to good use!

This one required "fall colored" cardstock and my Cricut to cut out the squared and letters. The leaves came from the Dollar Store, my favorite place to find items for my displays! Just a little fishing line after that and BOOM! There we go.

The hours on the Cricut made this a little more labor intensive, but I think it was worth it.

Rainy Day Reads

I love a book display that allows me to pull any book from off of the shelf and put it there. This display "Rainy Day Reads" allowed me to do just that. Ironically, it didn't rain a single day I had this display up. . . . .just further proof that we're in a drought here in California!

Making this display was simple. I just found some clip art of rain drops and clouds and used those as a template on white and blue card stock. I just eyeballed it with another piece of yellow poster board for the lightening. Finally, I used fishing line to string it all up. The raindrops have a hold punched in the very top, and the fishing line is taped onto it to hold it in place.

This display was fun and eye-catching!