Have you ever been in a grocery store, walked by a display of goodies on display at the end of an aisle and picked something up that wasn’t on your list?
Has the same thing ever happened to you at the Johnson County Library? It could, you know.
Just like “end caps” at the market help you discover new food items that might not have been on your radar, those displays throughout the Libraries are designed to help draw you to discover new books, movies and CDs. And perhaps discover something else.
“Libraries are all about access and the displays are about making connections,” said Beth McDaniel, librarian at the Leawood Pioneer branch. “We can make personal connections through the art of the displays.”
Diana Spencer, a librarian at the Corinth branch and another display aficionado, said her background in retail management helps her as she considers new displays.
“You have to keep your audience in mind,” she said, explaining that different branches serve different communities that make up Johnson County.
Book displays, at their very basic, pull from the vast collection of a series of related books and bring them together under a theme, making it easy for Library visitors to find what they are looking for, or perhaps find something they didn’t know they were looking for it! Popular topics for displays are things of great public interest – like presidential elections – or seasonal – like a cookbook display during Thanksgiving and holiday seasons.
One recent display at the Leawood Pioneer branch was Valentine’s Day themed. McDaniel said she searched for all the items in the collection that had “love” in the title. While Valentine’s Day was the broad theme, the goal was broader and intended to broaden our thinking about love beyond basic romance novels. Not only were there hundreds of books, movies and music to choose from – one of the requirements for displays is that there are plenty of items to choose from – but the topic of love was as wonderfully broad as they had hoped:
- The movie “Love Actually”
- “Why We Love Baseball” by former Kansas City Star sports columnist Joe Posnanski
- “No Love Zone,” a graphic novel in the LGBTQ orbit
- “The Love Prescription,” authored by two PhDs who have spent decades researching successful and unsuccessful relationships
- “Love and the Death of Damnation,” a musical CD by the band White Buffalo
“Sometimes, the displays might have a controversial take on a topic, but our mission is to provide access, to provide information,” McDaniel said.
The librarians keep watch on the display to make sure items are moving off of them and if not, the displays might be taken down sooner than expected. The opposite is true if a display proves especially popular. Librarians also keep watch to make sure the shelves remain stocked.
The creativity of the display gurus extends to the materials they use. Mindful of responsible use of resources, they often turn to what’s on hand. McDaniel uses (and then reuses) Plexiglas shields leftover from COVID precautions to paint with dry-erase markers. The resulting vivid 3-D drawings of owls and ravens draw patrons deep into the stacks. Spencer said the Library MakerSpace and its staff are a wonderful resource.
It seems that it is in the children’s areas where the creativity of displays is in full bloom. Spencer like to point to the “underwater” display she created in the basement of the Corinth branch with the help of a translucent blue fabric-type material that was draped over shelves to give the impression of walking underwater. McDaniel said her creation of a four-foot-tall papier-mâché penguin at the Gardner branch has remained on display long after its original purpose.
“They dress him up,” she said. “And the kids love him. I built it so he could be hugged.”
The displays are far from static. By introducing scavenger hunts or encouraging children to discover and promote a new favorite book through a Final Four-type championship bracket, Libraries and books become more inviting, fun and alive.
Collecting and examining data of what items are checked out is one way to measure the success of the displays. Another is the anecdotes of how the displays touch patron’s lives.
For instance, in January, there was a display of bilingual children's books. (There was also a scavenger hunt designed to teach children to say “hello” in multiple languages.) The books included some from several different languages: Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, French, English.
One day, Library staff saw a beautiful interaction that proved the value of the work: a mother and her daughter, curled up together on one of the big comfy chairs, with a songbook that had just been added to the display. The mother was quietly singing the songs to her daughter, then carefully sounding out the English translations of the songs. It seems the songs were in the mom's first (or more fluent) language, and that she was helping her daughter learn that language, while the mom herself was using the opportunity to learn/practice her own English.
“It was such a lovely reminder that even a simple book display can have a big impact,” said Tricia Rightmire, a patron service specialist at the Central Resource branch said. “Maybe it helps a person find their next favorite book or helps someone get access to a resource they need ... or maybe it provides a way for a parent to connect with their child, both of them learning together and building a core memory while the parent gets to share their culture with the next generation.”
Next time you visit one of the 14 Johnson County Library locations, look for one of the creative book displays and you might just discover something unexpected and delightful.