Topic of the Month: A Closer Look at the Importance of Displays
(The following is reprinted with permission from the Idaho Commission for Libraries, The Scoop newsletter, April 16, 2010. The photos included here did not appear in the original article.)
Putting Your Best Face Forward
By Ray Lusk
Editor’s Note: Ray is the Events Coordinator at the Madison Library District [in Idaho]. Ray started his library career by working in his school library as a 6th grader and since then has always been involved in libraries. He works with all ages, but likes developing ideas and programs to get teens involved most of all. He has been contributing articles for The Scoop in 2010.
We’ve all heard the age-old adage, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but we all know this rarely happens. People see a book and they instantly decide if they want to read it based on what it looks like. What makes book selection even harder is the overwhelming nothingness of judging a book by its spine. This, my friends, is why I firmly believe in the importance of face-out displays.
When I first started at the Madison Library District in 2005, we had almost no face-out displays. Now we have at least eight dedicated face-out displays. We estimate that between 30-40 percent of our circulation comes from these types of displays, especially on the children’s side of the library.
While the purpose of the face-out display does vary, they all seem to attract lots of attention. We have one large display that has a very large, hard-to-miss theme that changes every month or so. We also have a few smaller displays that we use to feature different subjects or collections that people may not know about. And we have three that are dedicated to the new books in the library.
Face-out displays are very good at helping the patron who is in a hurry or who has full hands. It allows the patron to quickly see a book and judge it by its cover instead of its spine. This allows the book to have a greater shelf appeal than it would have had otherwise and allows the patron to see things they might not have had it been shelved spine out.
By placing the new items that we have on a face-out display it gets those books featured, and then people can see that we do indeed have the latest book they’ve heard about on a TV show or radio program. Had the book been spine out, they would not have recognized the cover they had seen.
Vivian Milius, the children’s librarian at Madison Library District, made the point that the more often you fill your face-out displays, the faster the books will check out. One example is that if you fill the display once during the day then those will all check out. If you fill it two different times, once again they will all check out. If you are continually filling it up many times during the day, they will all check out. People will take books faster and take more if you keep the display full all day long. Vivian said that she shelves a third of her books face-out on a display. One out of every three shelves on her shelving cart will go face-out somewhere, and it is most likely that those will all check out many more times over their life than another book that isn’t shelved on a display. Another great thing about a display is that shelving books on a face-out display is much faster than shelving them in the stacks.
Displays don’t have to be large and extravagant to get attention, although the larger and more extravagant the more attention they get. I really enjoy planning and setting up large displays. On these displays we feature booklists and books from many different collections. By doing this we are allowing the patrons to encourage their children to read something similar to their parents, informing them of something that they didn’t know we carried, and it allows them to see that the library offers a wide range of information from a variety of areas inside the library.
Smaller displays have the same appeal. By putting all of the books about horses on top of a set of shelving with a calendar picture above them, the patron will see the horse picture and walk over and usually take a handful. While this display was much faster to set up and much more simple, it too allows the books to circulate faster than they would have been in the stacks.
In the end, putting a book face-out will allow the book to reach a wide variety of people that it wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. I hope that everyone will try at least one display-face out and see how it impacts your library. To see some of our displays check out our blog at http://blog.madisonlib.org.
State Library Updates and Announcements
Upcoming Newsletter Topics:
- July: Public performance rights for movies
- August: Exploring Web 2.0: photo sharing sites
Please contribute any materials, tips, questions, and comments you have on these topics to be included in the newsletters! And please let me know if there are any topics you’d like to see featured in the newsletter.
Summer Reading Program 2010
Free books block 'summer slide' in low-income students
This article in USA Today emphasizes the importance of reading over the summer: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-06-01-summerreading01_st_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip#uslPageReturn.
…and this blog post from the Washington Post challenges the previous article’s conclusions as too simplistic: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/learning/preventing-summer-learning-los.html. Check it out for an opposing view.
News & Opportunities
- http://delicious.com/collection_development_resources
- http://nmcollectiondevelopmentresources.wikispaces.com/
The American Indian Library Association (AILA) and the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) have launched the website Talk Story: Sharing Stories, Sharing Culture. Part of the Family Literacy Focus initiative of ALA, the website is a library-based family literacy model that reaches out to Asian/Pacific American (APA) and Native American (NA) children and families. It promotes early literacy skills and cultural literacy development in emergent and early readers. The program celebrates and explores their stories through books, oral traditions, and art to provide an interactive, enriching experience. Children and their families can connect to rich cultural activities through Talk Story in their homes, libraries, and communities. And the Jemez Pueblo Community Library right here in NM has posted info on its own Talk Story events!
The Valles Caldera Trust is excited to announce the opening of the Science and Education Center (SEC) in Jemez Springs. Nestled in San Diego Canyon, the SEC is only 15 minutes from the Preserve and just 90 minutes from the Albuquerque International Airport. It is a multipurpose venue for overnight field trips, conferences, retreats and other education opportunities.
Deadline: August 18, 2010
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announces funds to support projects in the humanities that explore stories, ideas, and beliefs in order to deepen our understanding of our lives and our world. Planning grants and implementation grants are available. Grants for America’s Historical and Cultural Organizations should encourage dialogue, discussion, and civic engagement, and they should foster learning among people of all ages. Eligible institutions include but are not limited to public, school, academic, and research libraries; museums; disciplinary and professional associations; cultural institutions; state humanities councils; and institutions of higher learning. Up to 30 awards will be funded, ranging up to $1,000,000. Go to http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/AHCO.htm for more info.
Deadline: September 15, 2010
Public school libraries and public libraries that host programs encouraging literacy and creativity in children can apply for an Ezra Jack Keats Minigrant of $500. Programs focusing on the work of Ezra Jack Keats are welcome, but not required. These grants are awarded annually. Go to
http://www.ezra-jack-keats.org/index.php?option=com_content&view= article&id=103&Itemid=65 for more info and the application.
There’s also a great interactive Kid’s Corner: http://www.ezra-jack-keats.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=112&Itemid=68.
Each year, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month by celebrating the histories, cultures, and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. The celebration covers a thirty-day period starting on September 15 and ending on October 15. The Programming Librarian website offers many ways to highlight National Hispanic Heritage Month at your library: http://www.programminglibrarian.org/library/planning/events-and-celebrations/national-hispanic-heritage-month.html.
They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, so why not promote your programming with images? Photos of your events can be used to attract new people to your programs by showing them what they’re missing, or to raise funds by showing how important and well-attended programming is in your community. Use them on your website, with social media, in newsletters, and in promotional material. Find out more at http://www.programminglibrarian.org/blog/2010/may-2010/taking-a-shot-at-photography.html.
Catch this podcast that covers starting a new book club, securing money and meeting space, marketing the club, and challenges and benefits of graphic novel reading groups. There’s also a bibliography, sample discussion questions, and more resources. Surf to http://acrl.ala.org/residency/?p=1182 to read and listen.
Barnes & Noble now offers an Online Storytime program in which a children’s author or celebrity reads a picture book while the book’s illustrations show on the screen. On the first Tuesday of every month, a new picture book will be posted. Fancy Nancy read by its author Jane O’Conner is first up. Check it out at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/index.asp. Great to show at the library, and for parents to use at home.
Slate.com is offering My Darklyng, a free online vampire novel for young adults, this summer by authors Laura Moser and Lauren Mechling. Every Friday through August, three new chapters will be posted. The novel is written in a new way designed specifically for an online audience. Go to http://www.slate.com/id/2255911/entry/2255912/ to start reading!
Start throwing some heat this July with programming ideas and promotions for Step Up to the Plate @ your library. July is a big month for baseball with the Home Run Derby (July 12), All-Star Game (July 13) and Induction Day (July 25). Step Up to the Plate makes it easy for libraries to help plan around these events.
Step Up to the Plate @ your library teams up two American classics - baseball and libraries - to promote the importance of information literacy skills and increase awareness of the library as an essential information resource. The program centers on a baseball trivia contest. People of all ages are encouraged to visit their library and answer a series of trivia questions inspired by our national pastime. Trivia questions are now available to library users on the program’s website.Since its launch in mid-May, the Benny & Penny blog for children has been attracting attention. With weekly cartoon contests and comic strips, it’s a great place for new readers to routinely visit. Each week, Benny & Penny creator Geoffrey Hayes adds a cartoon of Benny or Penny (or both of them!) with a blank speech balloon to the blog. Visitors to the website are free to submit ideas for what they think Benny and Penny should be saying in these balloons.
Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler isn't the only one with mixed up files. There's also the group of middle-grade authors who've started a new blog, The Mixed Up Files, devoted to all things middle-grade. Kimberley Griffiths Little (Peralta) is one of the founding authors.
The Information and Reading Preferences of North Carolina Children study examines reading and information preferences, based on 2,000 responses to an open-ended survey. The results indicated that children's subject preferences when entering a school or public library centered on animals, science, sports, and literature. Secondary preferences included biography, history, computers, careers, the library collection, and transportation. The findings are similar to other studies of children's reading and information preferences, though this study indicated a higher preference for computers and poetry, and a lower preference for the supernatural than other research. Go to http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/slmrb/slmrcontents/volume62003/readingpreferences.cfm for the entire report.
To celebrate the 75th year of publishing of Nancy Drew books, The University of Maryland Libraries featured an exhibit on Girls’ Series books in the fall of 2005 in the library. They’ve also now created a wonderful online version of the exhibit: http://www.lib.umd.edu/RARE/SpecialCollection/nancy/index.html. It offers a great history of the series, along with images and artifacts.
This article examines why series books are useful, why they are subtly challenging to support, and how to overcome support obstacles to launch more lifelong readers. Check it out at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/knowledgequest/kqwebarchives/v36/361/361goldsmith_.cfm.
This article takes notice in the rise of gay-themed youth literature and the response of teens, publishers, authors, and even librarians: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/24/entertainment/main6614401.shtml.
New Moon Girls is “A Feminist Magazine for Girls, by Girls,” geared for the tween crowd. The author’s concept: “to create content by girls, for girls, so that their voices would be heard -- and taken seriously -- so that girls would feel empowered to pursue their dreams, despite societal messages that try to derail and undermine their belief in themselves.” Click on http://www.care2.com/causes/trailblazers/blog/new-moon-girl-media-not-your-mother-s-magazine-but-maybe-it-should-be/ to learn more.
Virtual Summer Camp provides a wealth of free(!) online training tutorials for a wide range of Web 2.0 applications including Storybird, Screentoaster, Poll Everywhere, Flickr, Twitter, Glogster, and Google Docs. And there are links to Thinkfinity webinars, online lectures and workshops, PBS TeacherLine, and much more. Have fun in summer camp!
The Book Nook
Booklist has several new lists of environmental-related books:
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Classroom Connections: Preserving the Environment—Books That Encourage Stewardship
http://www.booklistonline.com/ProductInfo.aspx?pid=4249141 -
Classroom Connections: Graphic Novels with Science and Math Themes
http://www.booklistonline.com/ProductInfo.aspx?pid=4268442
The 2010 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards for Excellence in Children’s Literature have been announced.
- Fiction and Poetry: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (Random House/Lamb)
- Picture Books: I Know Here by Laurel Croza, illus. by Matt James (Groundwood)
- Nonfiction: Marching for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don’t You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge (Viking).
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Fiction and Poetry:
- The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan, illustrated by Peter Sís (Scholastic)
- A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner (Greenwillow)
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Picture Books:
- It’s a Secret! by John Burningham (Candlewick)
- The Lion & the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney (Little, Brown)
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Nonfiction:
- Anne Frank: Her Life in Words and Pictures by Menno Metselaar and Ruud van der Rol (Roaring Brook/Flash Point)
- Smile by Raina Telgemeier (Scholastic/Graphix)
Library to Library
Congratulations to Annette Montoya, Children’s Librarian at the Taos Public Library, for receiving the Anne Richardson National Award, presented by the Reading is Fundamental (RIF) program! The annual Volunteer of the Year Awards program, presented by Macy's Department Stores, celebrates the dedication and service of outstanding volunteers and coordinators. It recognizes the inspiring work of RIF coordinators, parent volunteers and community volunteers who donate their time, talents, and energy to motivate children to read. These individuals share a common goal of fostering children's literacy through their efforts at over 17,000 RIF sites across the country.
Los Alamos County Library System Children’s Librarian Wins ALA Stipend
Angie Manfredi, head of youth services at the Los Alamos County Library System, received a $1,000 stipend to attend Library Advocacy Day in Washington, DC on June 29, in conjunction with the American Library Association’s Annual Conference. Congratulations, Angie!
Beth Crist, Library Development Bureau Director
Beth.crist@state.nm.us; 505-476-9753
