#library displays

[banffcentrelibraryandarchives]

ARTIST BOOK DISPLAY OCTOBER 2024 🎃

The Ghost Box. Ed. Patton Oswalt. [Edmonton, Alberta] : Hingston & Olsen Publishing, 2017.

When I Go Out I Bleed Magic. Ingrid J. Torvund.[Oslo, Norway] : Torpedo Press, 2015.

Robot Control. Angela Mark. [Allston, MA] : American Living Press, 1991.

Horror Vacuum. Kalah Faye Allen. [Kansas City, KS] : K. Allen, 1996.

The Hardy Boys in A Ghost in the Closet. Mabel Maney. [San Francisco] : World O' Girls Books, 1991.

In the Event Anyone Disappears. Bisa Washington. [Rochester, NY] : Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1991.

The Dr. Frankenstein Option. David Robbins. [Graz, Austria] : Edition Forum Stadtpark, 1995.

More Satanic Verses. Russell Johnson. [New York] : Russ Johnson & Titanic Press, 1991.

Monster. Ronald Jones. [New York, NY] : Sonnabend Gallery, 1993.

[theo-the-ghost]

So, what these images are saying is that books are scary?

Spooky season is upon us! To celebrate I put together a few designs promoting books and libraries. If you like them, feel free to use them! These are four of my poster designs! Again, these posters are absolutely free for you to print and use!

Schools and public libraries are under attack and need your support. They are facing quiet defunding, book bans, and acts of hate. Please consider contacting your local representative to ask that these institutions remain funded and protected, and show your support by stopping by your local library.

For additional Halloween freebies celebrating libraries and reading, click the link here!

If you would like to see more of my library/activism designs or would like to get these designs on a T-shirt, book bag, or sticker, you can visit my shop here.

[fulloffeels]

It was time to change the endcap display, so I saw my chance and I took it

[lookingforabook]

One of the librarians has been sneakily removing books from the snowman to make it slowly melt over the last couple months, and he’s finally gone. I only got a couple pictures of the process, but the later stages are hilarious

[jakeperalta]

I'm sorry I just cannot get over how BORING the eras tour book cover is. not only is it the same photo we've seen a million times as the tour movie poster but there's zero design elements to it?? I'd hoped that midnights + ttpd signalled taylor moving away from the recent album art trend of "just take a photo and leave it at that, who cares about incorporating the title or anything" but that's exactly what we're getting here 🥲 and it's even worse when it's a $40 coffee table book like those are meant to look good!!!!! bring back graphic designers we're in a pop culture crisis

[lakecountylibrary]

DON'T MIND IF I DO

Hey, wanna see the Pride display we just made at Merrillville Branch?

A common question we get is, can we check out books from a display? YES. Feel free to pluck them right off the shelf and check them out and take them home.

That does not apply to the bracelets in the Help Yourself bin - you don't have to check those out, you can just have them :)

(ETA: The bracelets were donated by our local PFLAG chapter!)

Hey, this pride month (or literally any time of year), you wanna know something fairly easy and great you can do?

Contact your local library (or comment on their social media) positively for any pride/LGBTQIA+/queer-related displays or events they have going on.

Seriously.

What I’m seeing and hearing from the (mostly US-based) library workers in my groups and social circles is that the anti-queer (anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-drag queen story time, etc.) comments and complaints that have ramped up in the past year aren’t going away. Even library workers with supportive coworkers/bosses/boards are steeling themselves to deal with an avalanche of garbage, or are second-guessing their displays and events because the amount of vitriol can wear a person down so much. And the ones without supportive people or work environments? It’s worse.

Give the library something else: give them both the ammo (by being one of the numbers they can count worth the positive group) if they need to show their community isn’t wholly negative. Give them the compliment of knowing that their work got appreciated.

A comment like “I love this” or “Wow, that looks great!”

An email about how much you’re excited about X event

A call saying you wanted to let them know you appreciate this thing

Tagging them if you share a picture or positive comment on social media

“Cool shirt/pins/etc!” (Because people are also bring harassed about personally being queer, even if it’s not a library display)

Literally anything that would be positive for them to receive

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday

Last month, the Milwaukee Public Library's Arts & Media Department held its first Art Book Club session. Intended as an informal art book appreciation club that meets once a month in the Art, Music, and Recreation room, each session explores a different theme by looking at the wide variety of art materials in the collection. The collection is historical, non-circulating, and vast. I attended and spent an hour and a half mesmerized by the array of luscious materials presented.

There was design, architecture, fashion, and much more. As a type nerd, I was especially drawn to the several late 19th- and early 20th-century type specimen books on the tables. Here, for example, are some pages of chromatic initials by various European and American companies from Schriften Atlas, compiled by Ludwig Petzendorfer and published in Stuttgart by Julius Hoffmann in 1898.

MPL held its second Art Book Club session on the theme of "Animals" last night, but I missed it because I was conducting an evening instruction session. Dang! But I'll be attending future sessions when I can and I'll keep y'all apprised.

View other type specimen books.

View more Typography Tuesday posts.

-- MAX, Head, Special Collections

[sixofravens-reads]

Book Haul: Whoops, it's Almost My Birthday Edition

Went to the bookstore downtown today to get a present for my friend and a little treat for myself...ended up with about 30% Friend Present and 60% Me Present, whoops lol

(friend's present is not pictured bc I'm not sure if she checks this blog)

[cottagecore-raccoon]

Ooooo a question I'm actually qualified to answer!!

I work on the displays team at a public library. I'm the one responsible for deciding most of the topics (unless there are requests), making the lists for what library materials we will include on them, putting them up every month, and then maintaining them to make sure they're always full. In short, they're a decent amount of work

Last month, we had six displays that circulated a total 263 materials. Every single time I see someone check out a book from our displays, I cheer. Nothing makes me happier than seeing someone go up to each of our displays and check out an armload of books.

For a slightly longer explanation, there are a bunch reasons libraries might choose to display an item.

The subject of the display is considered important

The materials themselves haven't circulated in a while, and this is a way to encourage folks to check them out

The library is trying to promote an upcoming program (my library has a writer coming in July, so we're doing a display with books on writing to promote it)

The person making the display really loves this book/movie and wants to encourage other people to love it too

The library wants to call attention to a certain part of the collection

The person making the displays just thinks the subject is fun (I have a pirate themed display this month for that reason)

All of these reasons are best accomplished by folks checking out the items. Please check out the items you're interested in!

I see your concern about being the only one able to check out a specific book at a time, but consider: would you have checked out this book if it weren't for the display? Cause that's our entire goal: get folks who might be interested in these books (but don't know it yet) to check them out. And I can promise you, you're exactly the intended audience.

Anyway anon, I hope that was all helpful! If you have any more library questions, you're always welcome to pop by my inbox! I can't promise you I'll know everything, but I could ask my coworkers (since they're always happy for someone to express an interest in what they're doing)

this is probably a silly thing i’m worrying about, but at my local library they often have displays of books for certain holidays/etc (like right now there’s one for pride month, there was one for autism acceptance, black history month, etc).

am i allowed to take books from that display? from what i can tell the books there only have 1 copy. i guess they’re obviously there to take but i was thinking if i take one then there’s gonna be a big blank space in the table won’t there 😭

-

[lakecountylibrary]

This one's not a book rec, but we wanted to take a second to brag on our Highland Branch janitor, Lynne. She makes these cake sculptures out of brick and asphalt!

These are on display right now at Highland Branch - if you're in the area, stop by for a closer look (but please don't taste!)

[banffcentrelibraryandarchives]

SEPTEMBER ARTIST BOOK DISPLAY!

CCCP Cook Book: True Stories of Soviet Cuisine. Olga & Pavel Syutkin; translated by Ast A. Moore. [London] : Fuel Design & Publishing, 2015.

The Mental Health Cookbook. Finn Cunningham. [Los Angeles, California] : & Pens Press, 2015.

Artist's Cocktails. Ryan Gander, Phil Mayer. [London] : Dent-De-Leone, 2015.

Light and Flaky : Portrait of the Artist's Mother : A Cookbook. Lise Melhorn-Boe, Pauline Melhorn. [Toronto] : Transformer Press, 1982.

The Starving Artists' Cookbook. Paul Eidia, Melissa Eidia. [New York] : Eidia Books, 1991.

The Futurist Cookbook. F. T. Marinetti. [San Francisco] : Bedford Arts, 1989.

Very Food. Silvia Ziranek. [London] : Book Works, 1987.

Recipe Written from Memory 2. Ross Angus Macaulay, Perro Verlag. [Mayne Island, BC] : Perro Verlag Books by Artists, 2012.

Folly Acres Cook Book. Sue Webster; illustrated by Tim Nobel and Sue Webster. [London] : Other Criteria, 2015.

Type Pie: (A Vaguely Erotic Recipe for Disaster). Marine Parsons, Tara Bryan. [St. John's, Newfoundland] : Walking Bird Press, 2017.

[doctorcurdlejr]

I've been working with my students to build this hangout area in the library with like fun lighting, student book reviews, comfy seating (we're getting bean bags in a few weeks), and fidgets as a soft launch on the general vibe I'm thinking for the rest of the library. It's been going SO WELL, students love it so far, but they've been slowly trying to squeeze in more desks than can really fit so they can all sit there 😭 anyways some pics 😋

[overhaulhautecouture]

he wants to play with you—will you play with him?

[shredsandpatches]

currently in a very bad mood because some asshole wrote "don't polute [sic] the minds of children :)" on the Banned Books Week whiteboard in the lobby

[bowtiepastabitch]

Biting off a bit more than I can chew today. I doubt I’ll be able to read them all, but checking them out is good for the library and it’s good for me. Plus I’m being optimistic, maybe something here can fix the burnout. (Neil Gaiman please save me) If not, I shall simply absorb the book magic via the osmosis of keeping them on my bedside table for the next two weeks. Library books are cool like that.

[lookingforabook]

Library display: Books with ‘Sedimental’ Value