September Library Display, 2013

Banned books week!

I give my library associate FULL credit for this one.  She did the signage, and she came up with the design.

"Celebrate the Freedom to Read"

 What's more iconic to Banned Books Week than burning books?

And my favorite Ray Bradbury quote....

Nuts and Bolts:

I brought in a few branches from my back yard, and we crumpled up some packing paper.  Easy peasy.  We cut the flames out of colored paper (not so easy peasy .... actually very annoying!)  But the smart thing we did was be very sparing in our use of tape so we could make sure we can reuse stuff like that.

We displayed books from the banned and challenged lists, and really got students talking about it.  Yay!

October Library Display, 2013

This is my most favorite display EVER.  I don't know that we'll ever top it!

"Books that go BUMP in the Night"

Yes, indeedy.  We turned our shelves into a haunted house!!
 

And the front window was spooky as well.

Of course, I couldn't resist doing something fun on the dry erase board!

Nuts and bolts:

The house was hard.  I used an old cardboard box, LOTS of tape, and a good bit of under-my-breath muttering to make the roof.  It looks fine on the front side, but if you look at the back you'll see all the bits and fakery I did to make it come out right.  I spent several hours off and on working on it (yes, I am nuts).

For the black part I bought four sheets of black poster board.  I wanted it to be stiff, not floppy like bulletin board paper.  Again, I just cut strips and pieced it together based on a sketch I did beforehand.  We used yellow as a background to make it look like light shining out windows.  I was going to add doors to the bottom shelf, but I eventually a) ran out of time, and b) decided it would get in the way of the computer to the left.

The books are all books about ghosts and ghost stories.  We even have a few about famous college ghosts!  (And of course the obligatory "13 Georgia Ghosts and Jeffrey".)

November Library Display, 2013

We went historical for November.  We dug up books about the early colonization of America, books about Native Americans, and tossed in some kids' books on Thanksgiving to make it bright.

 "Happy Thanksgiving"

 So we went with the fall theme, and created a tree.  (Well, sort of... if you squint just right...)  Someone brought in a bag of decorative winter squash a few days later and filled the bottom shelf with those (but slacker that I am I didn't get a pic of that.)

Our front window became a cornucopia, spilling out fruit, veggies, and ebooks!

And because I could, I drew a cornucopia on the board as well.

Nuts and Bolts:

The tree was a pain.  I didn't want to waste a lot of paper, so I pieced together strips and tried to cover the seams with leaves we cut out of colored copy paper.  We did the same thing for the cornucopia in the window.  We found simple clipart that we printed large onto colored paper, and used gel pens to add extra color.

December Library Display, 2013

So here's a new idea.  I'm going to start making posts about our library displays each month.  How we came up with the idea, how we executed, and so forth.

Boring?  Why, yes, it is!

But I do spend a lot of time online looking for display ideas, and if our humble efforts can inspire someone else, then how awesome is that?

So I'll be working in reverse....

Here's December, 2013!

"Get Wrapped Up in a Good Book"

This is our actual display shelf.  It's really the only place we can put books, so we have to be really creative with making it look interesting.  We're lucky in that we have bulletin board paper we can use to put in the background.

 This was our first effort to decorate the circulation desk - we reused the flames from our banned books display back in September, and with a little donated tree made it look very cheerful.

 

Our library is in a building shared with other tenants (not part of the college).  We are on the first floor, right next to the main door.  So our interior windows face the hall, and we like to do something on those that match our display theme inside.  Usually we have print books inside, and we highlight various ebooks on the window.

 Finally - my favorite.  The dry-erase board!  We have a board on wheels that we roll into the hall each morning, and it usually says something like "Welcome to the library". I love drawing, so I decided to start making the welcome sign more festive!

Nuts and bolts:

I try not to spend more than a few dollars on the displays.  We get some supplies from the main campus library (which has several huge bulletin boards).  Sometimes I bring in stuff I already have (like the tree) or I'll go to the dollar store and see what I can scrounge up.  The ribbon was left over from a project at home, and I didn't mind using the remainder at work.  We're fortunate to have a color printer, so we use that for the MS Publisher signage and the book covers.

Finding books to go with our theme is the most difficult.  We're a tiny library, so sometimes we just don't have enough books in the stacks to fill the display shelves.  But we're lucky in that we can have books sent from some of our other campus libraries, and fill in that way.  (And that also lets our patrons know that we have access to more than what they see!)

We decided to go with interesting books you might give as gifts.  We looked for ones with interesting covers or unusual subjects.

And that's December!

A Visit to the Georgia Archives and the National Archives at Atlanta

Last week I attended a meeting that included tours of the Georgia Archives and the National Archives at Atlanta.  You might find this tidbit interesting - Georgia is the only state where the regional National Archives is next door to the state archives.  Pretty cool, huh?

(picture from the Clayton County Information site)

The National Archives is the building on the left, and the Georgia Archives is on the right.

Here's a better picture of the state archives building - you'll note it's very shiny!

(picture from the State Archivists website)

As we were touring the state archives I thought several times, "Oh, I wish I had my camera!"  We got to see the preservation and conservation rooms, plus walk through some of the not-open-to-the-public vaults.  Yes I am a librarian, and yes I am a nerd, so this was totally filled with awesomeness!

Another interesting tidbit:  this building was constructed specifically as an archive.  It's got all sorts of protective stuff built in.  The way the foundation and the supporting walls were created, if there was a flood (even of Biblical proportions), the entire vault would pop up and FLOAT before it would be breached.  I have to go all Keanu Reeves on that and say "woah, duuuude!"

We left the state building, and moved across the courtyard to the National Archives.

(photo by yours truly)

So as you'll note in that last caption, *I* took this picture.  Yeah... I'd forgotten I had my iPad tucked into my bag.  ::sigh::  But at least I had it out for pictures during the next tour!

The main lobby of the National Archives at Atlanta...

 Again, we got to go behind the scenes (and when you're a librarian in a huge archive, that's the best place to be!)

The National Archives at Atlanta is the repository for all the original draft cards from World War I.  Over 24 million of them.  The archives director Rob Richards, above, shows us one of those cards.  Wow.  They've digitized them (with the help of Ancestry.com, I think) but of course the originals were kept. 

The NAA's primary collection focus is federal records originating in or about the seven southeastern states.  And that includes the time before the American Revolution.

Some of these bound books are admiralty manifests and records from the port of Charleston pre-1776.  And a lot of them are from ships classified as sloops.  And you know what group of folks favored sloops at that time?  Pirates.  So we have PIRATE LOGS!  Arr, me hearties!!!!!!

I don't think I can adequately describe how massive the vaults are in this place, but here's a picture I took from about *halfway* down the aisle.

And this was about halfway down the main corridor between the aisles.... and this is just one of the vaults.  They have four.

So it was a fantastic trip. I encourage you to hook up with a large group of librarians and finagle yourself a behind-the-scenes tour.  If you're nerdy like me, you definitely won't regret it!