BULLETIN BOARDS & DISPLAY : January

"Fight the CHILL with some steeeamy ROMANCE!"

     January is always tricky when it comes to decorating in the 'brary. You come back from Winter Break and there's that damn Christmas tree and all the garland and snowmen and elves and shit, staring you in the face like an un-flushed toilet.
     Luckily I can leave anything that is just wintery and not necessarily Christmasy. So I left up the snowy background paper on the big bulletin board, and the Narnia poster, and just had to figure out something to go on the left side to replace Santa.
     I finally came up with the slogan, "Fight the CHILL with some steeeamy ROMANCE!" which is very unlike me because that's my least-favorite genre. But it's been FREEZING in the library the last couple of days, so I've been thinking about COLD and CHILLS.
     I printed out some romance book covers, including David Levithan's Two Boys Kissing, plus a gay girl book by Julie Ann Peters, and several hetero romances. I always try to represent everyone.
     I cut the flames out of big sheets of red construction paper. Simple.
   

     But every time I look at it, in my head I change it to, "Fight the chill with some stiiiiinky romance!" and then I get the crazy giggles.

Display cabinet dedicated to "Year of the Horse"
     January 31st is Chinese New Year, and 2014 is the Year of the Horse. So my mom (trusty library volunteer) and I put together a display of horse books in the circular display cabinet. She half-jokingly said I could bring in some ponies from my personal collection, and I was like, "I will TOTALLY do that!!!" I have a shitload of My Little Ponies, but also other types. The crazier the better. (She has asked me in the past if I can ever have too many ponies, and I have said no.)

Close-up of top shelf of Year of the Horse cabinet.

     I grabbed a book on Chinese Astrology, and found a listing of traits attributed to people born in the Year of the Horse, and those are the words you see on the red-backed cards placed randomly on the glass shelves betwixt various horses & ponies. Calm, independent, cheerful, sociable, curious, popular, generous, confident, amusing, talented, etc.

That big horse is from the Bratz toy line. It has glittery hooves.
The purple pony in front is a special edition My Little Pony designed by artist Junko Mizuno.
     I ended up using an assortment of my more tasteful ponies, for the most part. For example, I refrained from including Strawberry Shortcake's scented horse, "Honey Pie." And I did not include She-Ra's transparent blue winged horse, "Crystal Moonbeam." 

Back of the Year of the Horse display cabinet.

This one is from the "Bratz Babyz Ponyz" line. It looks pretty snarky.


     We have these two big black frames I use as bulletin boards, one on each side of the library. It helps break up the monotony of blank white institutional walls. Anyway, we slapped a Chinese New Year poster up on one, which you see above. 
     Below is the one my mom assembled with online images she found, plus a great Year of the Horse quote. And some intricate Chinese paper cuts we found in a fancy book. It was donated years ago, and I never knew what to do with it because if I allowed students to borrow it, the delicate paper-cut things would have been ruined. So Mom carefully extracted them from the book, and now they can be enjoyed as decor!


     So that was January's decorating frenzy. Now it's back to shelving, mending, generating library and textbook fine notices, and doing inventory. GET BACK TO WORK!

BULLETIN BOARDS & DISPLAY : Banned Books Week 2013!

     This post is quite tardy. The library has been very busy. But better late than never, right? Banned Books Week 2013 was September 22-28. I had the library all decorated to support intellectual freedom, and I did presentations about censorship and intellectual freedom for 6 eighth grade English classes. They were all very attentive and polite, and had great questions and participation. Their teacher had them all check out books that had been either banned or challenged, which made for some interesting research coming up with about 200 titles that fit the bill and were currently available in our library.
     She gave them an assignment to read their challenged/banned book and take a stance on whether they agreed or not with the book being challenged or banned, and why. Of course she leaned heavily toward influencing them on the side of intellectual freedom.
     I really liked how the teacher made it very clear in her paperwork for the students that banning a book means removing it from an entire community so that NO ONE has access to it.
     I felt it was totally worth the effort on her part and my part. I loved that the teacher wanted to do such a thorough exploration of a subject that's near and dear to my heart. It gave me the opportunity to talk about my own personal experience with censorship. It's great to see teachers who recognize how important it is to teach kids about the issue, and make sure they understand all the complexities of it. It's not simple or easy.
     I ended up having some great conversations with students regarding the reasons (so-called and real) why some people try to ban certain books. Sometimes it was difficult to find the info, which was also a nice research challenge. ;)
     Here are some pics of what I put up in the library for Banned Books Week, 2013.
   

There's that comic I drew a billion years ago when I worked in the junior high library...
Detail of the "Library Key"



I like this poster.


I like this poster, too. Those robots are cute AND open-minded.
     "Think for Yourself and Let Others Do the Same" poster available from ALA HERE.

BULLETIN BOARDS & DISPLAY : Halloween 2013

Vintage Halloween tablecloth used as bulletin board covering.

     My Aunt Wanda gave me this rad bag full of vintage Halloween decorations. We figure they're from the 1950s, or maybe even the '40s. Some of the stuff was never even opened! Anthony and I put some of it up at home, and the rest I took to the library. My mom helped me put everything up, which was totally fun. Thanks, Mom! Thanks, Aunt Wanda!

Vintage scarecrow as centerpiece of the big bulletin board. (I made the reading tarantula years ago when I worked in the Children's Room of the Santa Ana Public Library.)

     I'm actually ashamed of that half-hearted "WEAVE ME ALONE, I'M READING" slogan. I was in a hurry to come up with something reading-related and also spooky or whatever, and kids were due to come flooding into the library any minute.

Luckily for me there were TWO of these vintage flying saucer witches, so one is at home hovering over our dining table, and the other is coasting across the library whiteboard. She's bitchin'.

     Then this crepe paper honeycomb spider happened!

"Kiss my fat black ass!"

     Rubberhead the Skeleton Man hangs out in the library every year. He's surrounded by potions, ravens, a vintage black cat crepe paper thingie, and horror stories.



Vintage crepe paper honeycomb bats, clip art collage stuff, and spoooooky books! Plus my extended bibliography of horror reading recommendations printed on orange paper.

There's that witch, some skull lights, and that sassy black spider...

Vintage Halloween tablecloth, vintage crepe paper spider, Maurice Sendak calendar, Chris Van Allsburg glowing pumpkin print from "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick," and Alice In Wonderland Halloween scrapbook paper.

I drew that lil' skeleton years ago, and he really needs some new material because he says "The horror… the horror…" every damn year.

    In the picture above, see those two vintage orange and black plastic Halloween decorations? My Librarian gave those to me before she retired. I love them. Thanks, Marilyn!

The End!