Over to Pinterest

We've moved over to Pinterest- under a board called "For the library"  It's more collaborative, and a quick visual way to share ideas.  Thanks for visiting!

Customer curator found us horse art

New theme of the month- horses! 
Bonus is that a regular customer did the art curating for us- and found a great set of images.
Had a kids' art contest again- so popular.  And put My Little Ponies in the cabinet!

Who can resist?

In June the Summer Reading Club launched with this fun craft dreamed up by the kids' team.  Dinosaur and frog footprints were laminated, and taped to the floor winding through the library.

It led to our beautiful windows, where customers were offered window markers to add their drawings.

Brainstorming fun ideas on Pinterest

I love brainstorming fun stuff to do at the library on Pinterest.  It's great to toss ideas back and forth.

Catch their attention

Our library is on a light rail transit line, and we want to catch the attention of people riding by.  Something a little puzzling that will make them look twice.  Also something that would suggest we're having fun inside. 

We photoshopped our namesake librarian onto Mona Lisa's body.  She has a speech bubble so that we can promote our programs and collections with dry erase markers.  The sign is clipped to the brick wall with brick clips, so she can move to different locations.  "Mona Louise" has proved to be a hit after 3 days.  From Day 1, passerbys have stopped to take pictures with her on their cellphones!

Today she's saying "Let them eat cake" in honour of an upcoming birthday party.

The Mancave

Perennial library question: "What do you have that my son will read?"  Using customer donations, we created a one stop "Mancave" of books for boys.  Stacked messily on a bottom shelf, they're in no particular order.  This is an appealing organization technique I've learned from my son.  This way there's always Wimpy Kids available, even when those organized girls put holds on everything!  All that's missing is a half eaten sandwich...

Games, big and small

Small-board games left out at random on the tables, like Trouble with it's pop-o-matic bubble

Big- chess horses that are also fun to ride around on if you're 3

Bartholomew Cubbins was on to something

Downton Abbey episodes showing on the TV

Staff wearing their mom's and grandma's hats

Paper plate hats

What do these 3 things have in common?

Hats!

It's surprising how many more customers talk to you when you wear a funny hat

WWCNR?

I love finding suprises in the library!  Didn't you always wonder What Would Chuck Norris Read?!

What do YOU think?

Ever since hearing Rachel Van Riel, we've been trying to involve the customer in displays.  Imagine how happy I was to find 2 "asks" in the library this week:

And...

Banana month

Always a reason to celebrate.   There were banana riddles on the back of the banana pictures- fun!

Let's pretend we're at the beach

We had a cold snap last month, so we pretended that it was a tropical beach resort in the kids' area.  The outdoor patio furniture we scrounged at a giveaway day came inside and was covered with books about desserts and beaches.  There was a glitzy palm tree, and sign which read, "Pretend it's warm outside."

The library is a place to imagine, right?!  All that was missing was the drinks with umbrellas.

Knit bombers

Heard about another knit bombing, which made me miss the knitters at my old branch.  They met once a week to "stitch and chat", and decided to play an April Fool's Day joke.  Afterwards, the squares were stitched together to make a rug for storytime.

The squares were strung across a clothesline rope to look like Tibetan prayer flags.

The fuzzy bumper on the rail was my favourite.

Crafts with grandparents or nannies

We get lots of regulars.  There are some nannies that come in daily, and it's nice to give them a little something new to do.  Since many are from the Phillipines, we made a display of new Pilipino material.  They also loved this drop in craft to make Christmas ornaments.  One girl insisted that she give her ornament to her favourite storyteller to add to the branch tree.

During the Christmas break, a lot of grandparents show up with their grandchildren in tow.  They've been enlisted to help babysit during school holidays.  We timed this craft to help them out.  We also put up a display of books and DVDs labelled "Books and DVDs to help you survive babysiting the grandkids"  We had to fill it hourly!

Now that we survived the Christmas rush, I'm feeling a little more relaxed, just like the grandparents.  That is, until February teachers' convention holidays start....

Nanowrimo

What's more fun than racecars?  For National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) we recorded word counts as writers raced around the track.  A fun way to meet some of the writers in the neighbourhood.