December Teen Book Displays

Here's what I did for teen displays in December. I did two for the bulk of the month, and then I swapped one out this week because it was too good an opportunity not to.

When I Was a Teen...

I finished a huge weeding project in November, and after stumbling across so many memoirs for teens (often by those who were teens or just out of their teens themselves), I decided to pull them together into a display. 

Take A Trip

I think I mentioned that this winter has already been tough, and that inspired me to put together a display of books about road trips or set abroad. Wishful thinking, maybe. I was also inspired to pull it together since the weeding project reminded me of the SASS series, and I know it's one that would go out a lot more if it was more visible. 

Under the Mistletoe

I saw variations of this display popping up in my blog and tumblr reading, and I could not resist. I actually wish we had more kissing or near-kissing covers because I'd have really packed this display tight. 

October Displays

I've got two big programs for teens in October -- I consider "Teen Read Week" to be a month-long celebration for a variety of time and energy related reasons -- and I'll write about them when they're over. But in the mean time, I thought I'd share the displays I've got in the teen department for October.

The last week of September, I put up my banned books week display. Except I don't like calling it banned books week, so I noted instead that reading these books was about celebrating the freedom to read them. Simon and Schuster sent me the poster I've got taped on the display cube, and they sent me an extra one, which I put on the teen department bulletin board.

I've refilled this guy once already, and since banned books week is over, chances are when the other books disappear, I'll swap it out for another display. I'll likely go with horror or zombies since both are perennial favorites.

This is one of the displays I've been eager to do for a while, and I finally got around to it -- these are all books by authors who have Wisconsin ties or they're books set in Wisconsin. Author Molly Backes is doing a program for our teens and adults later this month, and it tied in too perfectly. When I checked the display later, a large number of the books had disappeared. In fact, as soon as I'd gotten the display set up, people were looking at it.

My middle cube is devoted to a raffle for the teens. I was lucky enough to meet Veronica Roth this summer, who signed a copy of Insurgent for me, and because the third book in the series releases this month, I thought a perfect giveaway for teen read month would be the entire set of books, including the super special signed copy.

Recently Displayed in the Teen Section

I've done a number of displays in the teen department over the last few months and failed to post them over here! I've been taking pictures and popping them onto my tumblr, but I figured for those of you who read this and don't want to head over there, I'd share here, too.


September Displays:

Sometimes, you don't even have to be creative to make a successful display. This one is just a display of recent new books. Yes, we have an entire new books section, but I figured pulling some out to display would get them even more exposure, in a different area of the teen department. And I was right -- this has required refilling numerous times. I love "having" to keep refill my displays because it means books are moving. The sign for it just says "Try A New Book" and it's an image of an old ferris wheel because why not?

On my other lower display cube, I put up boarding school books. It, too, has been wildly popular. I've had to refill it once and . . . at this point I'm kind of out of books to put on the display, so there are only 4 or 5 on it now.

September is Hispanic Heritage Month, and I wanted to honor that with what our collection had in terms of stories and authors which showcase or who are of Hispanic heritage. This one hasn't moved quite the same way as the other two displays, but stuff has definitely been checked out. More importantly, though, I think even when your displays aren't as successful, showcasing what your collection has is really important -- especially when it comes to showcasing multicultural titles. We do serve a sizable Hispanic population, as well.

Because banned books week is this month and our library is doing a series of "Big Read" events around it, I plan on switching one of the displays out to show off banned books (I think I'm going to frame it as intellectual freedom, as opposed to banned books, maybe).


August Displays:

The most popular books teens read this summer (according to summer reading club entries) were written by Ellen Hopkins. So to sate the interests of those readers, I did a read alike display, which was wildly successful. I think I'm going to end up making a post of some sort to put in the teen area to give read alikes to some of the really popular authors.

I did a display of short stories for August, as well. Though some of the books went out, it wasn't the most popular display I've done. I think that speaks to the popularity of short stories with teen readers, to be honest. Some love them, but most of our titles don't circulate very well.

This idea I took from another tumblr user, who developed a reading list for fans of Supernatural. I made it a display and it did very well. I think I might replicate this sort of display in October, but this time for fans waiting for The Walking Dead. Yep, it would be yet another zombie display (I think my third in a year?) but those books go like crazy, and I don't see why replicating popular displays is a bad thing, especially if you're changing up the how of your display -- in other words, not always simple "zombie books!" but in this case, it'd be a tie in to the show's return in mid-October. My kids are rabid about zombies, and I want to keep 'em happy. 

They are rabid enough that they even helped make a poster for our library card sign up month campaign, dressed as zombies. 

July Displays:

Like I said. I think in July I refilled this display almost every time I came to work -- and sometimes, there weren't any books to add to it.

I also did a display of books with either time travel or which took place in parallel worlds in July. This was a fun and a tough one -- but it got some books circulating that hadn't gone out in a long time.

March teen displays

I'm really pleased with my (finished) displays for March. I add finished since one of them isn't yet -- we've been so busy, I never got to fully flesh it out. And then I noticed some of the books I did get onto it were gone, meaning it needs a refill again (which is awesome and not a complaint).

So this month, I went with three very different themes.

First: Arts and Crafts. March is Youth Art Month and also National Craft Month, so I pulled out a few of our teen craft guides. This is my half-finished display, as my intention was to also pull out a number of fictional titles featuring artistic/crafty teens.

Second: Get Lucky. No, not like that. The sign actually reads "Get lucky with a green book," and the display is filled with books that have green covers. As easy as it sounds, it was surprisingly hard to pull together enough books with entirely green covers. But I did it, and it really brightened up the display space.

Finally: Women's history month. That's pictured above. But rather than a "historical girls" display -- which is quite limited -- I played with the idea of strong female characters instead. So the poster says "Like a strong female character?" and I pulled together books across genres featuring strong leading ladies. I think this might be my favorite display to date, as it includes so many different types of female characters and so many different genres. And since putting it up, some of those books have gone.

December Displays

I wasn't lying about trying to post a couple times a month, and with this post, I will have written twice in November!

Here's what we've got on display for December. I love showing off displays because they're an easy way to highlight different aspects of your collection and they take little effort to do. We have a nice trio of display cubes at the entrance to our teen area. It's eye-catching.

Since the end of the world is coming on the 21st, I thought first of throwing together a display of post-apocalyptic titles. Note: not dystopia. The signage in the back just says "December 21 is the end of the world. Are you ready?"

Then in the middle cube, my coworker and I decided to try a staff picks. Since a lot of our staff reads YA, she sent out an email to everyone, collected their results, and sent them my way. Can I just say I know I work in the right place when someone who wasn't me picked Herbach's Stupid Fast as a favorite?


Here's the front of that display:

And here's what I did for the back of it (we had a ton of input which was fabulous):

My coworker did this display in November and I really like it, so I decided I had to snap a photo and include it. Because this kind of display is too easy not to do, honestly.

I don't know if the sign is readable, but it says "I read a book and remember the cover was blue."

I think display creation is one of my favorite things as a librarian. It's creative, and it allows you to really sell up books that might otherwise not get sold easily being spine-out only.

Teen Displays!

Since summer reading is so close to done and I'm tired of looking at the same displays in the teen area, I decided to switch it up this week. I made a huge display space earlier this summer, and I decided to utilize it for two displays this month.

First up, my display on books that feature food in some way:


I've got sweets, coffee, scones, cheese shops, and even some non-fiction about cooking well. I plan on posting a lengthier book list on this topic over at STACKED in the next week or so, since there are a ton of books that fit. I did make myself laugh a little as I stood in front of the Sarah Dessen titles and tried to remember which was the one that featured the catering job -- I think I've read too much Dessen if I'm so familiar with that small plot detail (for the record, it's The Truth About Forever, probably my favorite of her books).

Then, to celebrate August as happiness month, I thought it would be worthwhile to do a completely color-filled display:


It's books that have yellow covers, and there's no other connection among them. I love my sign, where I was able to put the name of the display ("August is get happy month. Brighten your reading all month long.") as the smile. It really is the little things.

Changing the bulletin board

I've had an idea cooking in my head to change up the bulletin board in the teen area, and this week I was finally able to pull everything together.

After a couple of high school teachers mentioned how hard it was to get the kids to read, both citing not being exposed to much or knowing how to pick something good (one mentioning that discussing book covers is something she thinks is effective), I decided to put MY passion on display: The Cybils.




It's a long and narrow board, and I decided to line the sides and the bottom with some of this year's nominees, both in YA Fiction and in YA Science Fiction / Fantasy.




The middle of the board has the title in a huge font (it's 700 point) and the sign in the middle: "Awards Books that Don't Suck." I have to thank the panel organizer, Jackie, for that little gem. I went back and forth on using it -- the word suck, that is -- but ultimately decided that that is EXACTLY how kids would want a book sold to them.

I printed out "Who," "What," "When," and "Where" labels, and beneath each, I put a small bit about the awards. I took the logo from the site. On my "Where" sign, I've made small pull tabs that the teens can take with them and it will get them on the website.

On either side of the middle and the frame of nominees, I've put up the finalists and winners of years past:









I've saved all of the book covers and the signage into a publisher file, and if anyone is interested in getting a copy, let me know! I'm happy to share since it means getting the word out.

Two teen displays

I've done two new displays recently upstairs in our teen area. The space is one small shelf above our heater for now until I figure out how to rearrange everything. Apologies in advance for the less-than-spectacular photo quality.

First up, the Teen Read Week "Books with Beat" display:

This is the display in its full glory. Let's look to the left side first.

And now the right side.


I got one of my teen volunteers to decorate both of the vinyl albums. I told her I'd be using them in a display which got her excited. I picked a pile of them up for $.25 each at our Goodwill. My teen volunteers will be decorating a few more to help liven up the walls in the teen area.

I also pulled a few music-related titles and tried to stick to ones that really show cased the music aspect on the cover.


My display signage was, I think, one of the better ones I've done. When you don't have access to a good photo editing source, you make do. I got the vector image for free here. You do need to make an account, but it is totally free. I then added my own music clip art and added my words.

The second display was one I popped up this week and will likely leave up for another week while I figure out what I want to display through the end of the year. Given the time of year, you can guess what the theme is, right? Let's get scared:

It's a little mix of traditional horror with some spooky, eerie, or just creeptastic stories or books with covers fitting that bill.

Murky water, a carriage with sharp objects, and laser cut tree limbs qualify as scary in my book!

These probably qualify as a little more on the creepy side.

You get a glare when you take photos of signs in acrylic cases under light, so, there you have it. I dug out a witch hat and those two tissue ghosts from my storage closet in the basement and thought to use them for some props in this display. I found the border for this sign in Publisher, and I got the image from the fantastic image site stock exchange. That's another one you need to register for but it's free and worth the two minutes of your time.

That's what I've been displaying these last couple weeks. What about you?

Banned Books Week 2010

One of the first tasks I accomplished at my new job was to clean out one of my storage closets to see what goodies lived in it. Lucky for me, I found a little caution tape and knew immediately I needed to use it for my annual banned books display in the teen area.

But before that, I needed to make a catchy sign for the display. I loved this year's graphics from ALA, so I used it and modified it just a tad to give it a little personal flavor:



After printing it on heavier card stock and slipping it into the acrylic holder, it was time to go to work. I pulled out about 12 titles that had been banned or challenged in the last year (the list being readily available here). I picked titles with hard covers so they'd stand on their own and placed them on my makeshift display space with only the spine showing. Then it was time to use the caution tape:



As you can see, my display area right now is tiny. Before I did some shifting in the uniquely designed teen area, there wasn't a display space, so I carved one out on a single shelf above the register. But it's smack in the middle of the teen area, and it definitely stands out.

I didn't include any hand outs or book marks this year, but perhaps next year, it's something I'd be able to put together. I originally wanted to add something about the Speak Loudly campaign, but there weren't any good readily-available things I could grab for a book mark. It's something I certainly plan on posting to our teen Facebook this week, though.