Love to Read

By Erika Brysiewicz

Erika from Suriname International School in South America has shared these displays for Valentines day, the photographs of the students reading in the first display is a lovely idea. Thank you for sharing!

Book Lovers

By Rose Humphreys

Thank you to Rose, librarian at the lovely Somerset College in South Africa, for this fabulous idea for Valentines Day. Here are her comments:

"Instead of focusing on romantic love, (which some of the students don't like as they don't have anyone special), I asked the staff to tell me what their favourite reads were/are, or what they're loving right now. I created A5 posters for them and put them up on the noticeboard, along with a Book Lovers Rule and Rock sign - that's the first 2 photos. Unfortunately our noticeboard's glass reflects too much so I tried to take photos of the 2 halves of the board with the glass open. It isn't wonderful, but gives the idea.
Inside the library I created a display of as many of the books mentioned by the staff as we have, with the two posters in the next photos.
Some of the books have been checked out, quite a few have been looked at.
The best part was the enthusiastic response from staff, and the building of collaboration".

He loves me, he loves me not ...

By Elaine Pearson

A nice easy display to promote some love stories! 

Loving our library

By Valerie Dewhurst

Valerie selected a variety of romantically themed books to chose from for this Valentine's day display - the bags were bought from Scholastic and raffled off to support a charity.

It must be love

By Sharon Spong

Some good ideas for Valentine's day, or simply to promote some good or new love stories from your collection. Thanks for sharing your inspiration Sharon!

Library lovers

By Gabrielle Karsai

I love this idea from Gaby and would love to try it next year by asking for wedding photos from our staff. Here are her comments:

'I find that any display that involves school staff is very popular with the students. I asked for wedding photos or any other memorabilia that staff were happy to share. I ended up with 2 wedding gowns (one was mine!), lots of photos including great-grandparents, and 2 boxes of love letters (tied with pink ribbon) for a teacher when she was being courted by her then fiancé as he traveled the high sea (they have been happily married 38 years). I've supplied heart shaped post-it notes for the students to write what love means to them. What is it about weddings that sends teenage girls crazy?'

Fall in love with a good book ...

By Stephanie Taylor

Thanks to Stephanie for sharing her delightful Valentine's display!

Library Lovers Month

By Rebecca Thompson

Thanks to Rebecca, from King's College in Pennsylvania, who has shared this great display just in time for Valentine's day! A really good idea to use this time of year to promote anything you want!

Here are her comments:

'I have been enjoying your library display blog since I stumbled across it and thought I would submit the Library Lovers Month/Valentine’s display I put up here at King’s College.

I wanted to highlight a variety of topics as well as some more recent acquisitions (we recently began actively developing our graphic novel collection) as well as give students a chance to share some thoughts with us.

The small colored hearts across the top of the shelving have quotes about the love of libraries. So far we've had 4 books move off this display, the most of any display I've built so far, and had several students leave notes about their love for circulation staff'.

Valentine's Day

By Fran Karmann

Fran has Valentine's Day all sewn up this year! Her readers are in for a treat with these five fabulous displays. Thanks for sharing them Fran! 

Blind Date with a Book

By Jennifer Cauley

Here is Jennifer's second display for Valentine's Day. It's a great idea to use the 'lucky dip' idea as a blind date and I love the chalkboard effect - beautifully done! Thanks for sharing Jennifer.

Here are her comments:

'We tried this last year and it was really popular so it's back again. A lot of libraries come up with clever "dating profiles" for the books but I didn't have time for that (mostly because the chalkboard thing took forever). I wanted it to be easy for us to add a variety of books as other blind dates were checked out, so we just had an blank "frame" that we'd add a clever description in as we went along.'

Love Stinks!

By Jennifer Cauley

Thanks to Jennifer from the  Dubai American Academy for sending in this alternative and humerous take on Valentines Day! Here are her comments:

'I was inspired by a Grumpy Cat cookie on Pinterest. We pulled out books that dealt with breakups, relationship problems, or total love disasters. This let us cover a variety of genres but we were almost overwhelmed with angsty YA vampire books. :)'

Love matches in the library ...

By Natalie Dias Lorenzi

Thanks to Natalie for sending this great idea for a display. Here are her comments:

'Making connections when reading is a big push in our state standards, and this display encourages kids to make text-to-text connections'.

* Natalie has listed her matches in a comment below - thanks Natalie!

By Elaine Pearson

Natalie, I loved your idea so  much that I created my own display, it was a great exercise in book selection! A lovely simple and cost-effective display - I hope it inspires the students.

Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month

By Jill Hames

Welcome to the Blog Jill, hope you enjoyed looking around.

Jill has generously shared two of her displays, this one is a creative way of approaching a very serious topic and works very well. Here are her comments: 

'I wanted to keep the display lighthearted, even though it is a serious topic. I used lavender paper to wrap YA books. All the books have some form of teenage relationship. On the covers, we wrote the book's barcode to facilitate circulation. We also wrote something to do with either a positive relationship or a sign of abuse. For example, "Healthy Relationship = Encouraging each other." Included in the display are bookmarks with Internet resources to help people in abusive relationships. The bookmarks and display sign have pink roses, again, trying to keep things light so that people will look at the content'.

For more details about Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month check out the website here:  Healthy Relationships

Valentines Day

By Fran Karmann

Valentines Day is fast approaching - Fran has already decorated her library to promote books from her collection. Thanks for sharing Fran, your library looks very romantic!

Blind Date with a Book

By Ruth Crocker

Ruth, Marketing Coordinator at St. Thomas Public Library, Ontario, has kindly shared this fantastic display.
I love the 'pick-up' lines!! They did the display in both the Adult Department of the public library, and in the Teen Lounge. Both were overwhelming successes. Customers could not get enough!
Here are the details from Ruth if you want to try this fabulous idea:

BLIND DATE WITH A BOOK
Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. I have no cover, so read me maybe?
There’s no awkward questions, no forced conversation, no judgmental looks, no need to call. Just have a blind date with a book!
Books from an assortment of genres, departments, fiction & non-fiction are wrapped in brown paper, so customers won't know what book they've checked out until they get home. Sure, it might turn out to be a dud, or it could be the diamond in the rough you wouldn't have given a chance otherwise. There’s no knowing until they check it out...
We used a variety of older and new-ish books, classics, books we knew were good but don't see a lot of check-out action, poetry books, biographies, philosophy - the works! We also included some teen fiction in the adult display. Some books we didn't know much about, but really enjoyed the cover or title. (Not every blind date can work out, right?) Customers appreciated the variety and the opportunity to read a book they would never have picked up on their own. We had several comments that customers had found new authors and series to enjoy, thanks to the display.

We used our barcode duplicator to add a barcode to the back of the wrapped book to make it easier at check-out time. We invited customers to "Rate Their Date" by using feedback bookmarks. "Was your date hot, or not?" Each book also had a sticker on the front with book pickup lines. Such gems included:

· Don't worry. I'm returnable!
· My life's an open book. Do 'ya read?
· I've got your (dewey decimal) number.
· Start a new chapter in your life. Pick me up!
· If you were words on a page, you'd be fine print!
· It's a good thing you have a library card, 'cause you're totally checking me out.
· If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put U and I together.
· Is there a rainbow? 'Cause I'm the treasure you've been searching for.

We will definitely be making this display an annual attraction around Valentine's Day and will be doing something similar during December for Christmas. (Like a secret Santa and wrapped with Christmas gift wrap, rather than brown craft paper.)

I love reading because ...

By Josephine Crimp

I love this simple, but very effective display by Josephine. She has used this display as a Valentine's Day / Book Week combination. Every student who came into the library was asked to write in a heart why they love reading. Josephine finds that interactive displays like his are really popular. 

I expect you got some very interesting comments Josephine!

Fall in Love with a Good Book

By Elaine Pearson
Happy Valentine's Day 2012!
I used Kelly Butcher's design for this display with a different caption. The font is "Cupid de Locke" and can be found at Dafont.com
The hearts are made from card and cut so they can be slotted on to the cover of the books. This display only went up yesterday and I have replaced the books twice already!

It's all about Love

By Elaine Pearson
I was sitting thinking about a display for Valentines Day. I haven't done one for a couple of years and have loads of new books to promote.
As I was pondering the International Students came into the library for a meeting and an idea popped into my head:
I gave them some pink paper and asked if they would write "I love you" in their home language. Later I cut them out into hearts and put them altogether to make this display. It pleased them to be asked and see their languages displayed.

This is a good site if you need more languages:
I love you in 100 languages


From GoodReads, "Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer -- they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along." Look out for the sequel: 'It's not summer without you'.

Valentines: Sweet Reads

By Lisa Stofac
For this lovely display Lisa has made a giant Sweethearts candy box and put hearts with book titles all over the board.
A 'Lovehearts' tube of sweets could be used as an alternative.