Display: Library Themes

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Displays, For Librarians

Term Library Themes and Displays

 I have found that sometimes it can be hard to choose the right display for our library. There are many influences and ideas that I draw upon: regular calendar events, special days, world-wide events, book anniversaries or author birthdays, even school-based events. I first heard about the idea of term themes in discussions on group list emails and then read about the execution of termly library themes in a SCIS Connections article, Termly themes: A year in the school library.
I decided to have a go at it myself. I would need four themes for the four school terms, and they should all integrate, working together to help promote our library and its services. I knew we would be celebrating the CBCA Book Week in the third school term, so I started with that year’s theme, Escape to Everywhere. I then built upon that, testing out other “Escape to….” themes, before settling upon four “e” letter words.

Experiment
Engage
Escape
Explore
Displays
Experiment
The Experiment theme was perfectly timed as well launched the library’s makerspace. Using the beautiful picture book Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty and illustrated by David Roberts as inspiration,

 

the display featured buzz words written on graph paper, images of book characters known for their creativity and ingenuity, optical illusions in the two top corners (which the students loved to stare at and which made the NF optical illusion books wildly popular), student creations made in the makerspace, and giant lettering, featuring the font Saucer BB.
Engage.
The Engage theme was centred around our students’ love of chess. They are welcome to play chess before and after school and during lunch breaks, and the library as our own giant chess set. As May The Fourth is celebrated in term 2, it was the perfect theme to incorporate all things Star Wars.
The window was painted into a chess board using window paint, the recipe for which you can find here. The font used is 101! Checkboard .
Escape

The third theme, as mention above was inspired by the CBCA Book Week theme, Escape to Everywhere. More details about this display can be found here.

Explore

The fourth and final theme, explore brought together a number of themes centred around travel. The image below does not show the final display, as bunting was added afterwards. The Explore lettering used the same pattern as the fabric on the bunting. I reused 3D balloons from a previous display, and painted the sunrise (though some thought it was a rainbow) with window paint. Road trip-themed titles decorated the display, alongside images of iconic landmarks.

Extras

Each theme had accompanying bookmarks (using the same fonts, theme ideas, and colours), and an electronic poster which we displayed on the library TV slideshows. The four themes made coordinating events more seamless, and it was fun seeing how it all came together.

Next Year

The term-by-term themes were so successful, that I have decided to use the concept again. This year, again using the Book Week theme as a starting point, the themes are:

Find Connections (featuring puzzles, which are very popular in our library, and opportunities to connect with others in the library space, such as book clubs, makerspace activities, tutoring and study groups).

Find New Worlds (this theme celebrates the magic of being transported to new and exciting worlds within the pages of a book).

Find Your Treasure (the Book Week theme, ideas for which you can find on this post).

Find Something Extraordinary (I’m still working on the wording of the theme, but the idea of celebrating individuals, celebrating our community, and celebrating the possibilities of the future will remain).

So, do you use term themes in your library? I’d love to hear your ideas, so please share in the comments below.

4 thoughts on “Display: Library Themes”

  1. educateempower.blog

    Hi! I don’t do term themes, just fortnightly small themes. I don’t have a lot of display space so it’s more just groups of books that link in with an important day and a poster made by one of the kids. One day I’ll have a bigger library with more space to display so I’m watching your great ideas!

    Reply
    1. Madison's Library

      Thank you! Yes, I am fortunate to work in a large library that has multiple spaces for displays. I use the front entrance display boards for weekly or fortnightly displays around important days, as you mentioned, and then I can use the Junior Reading room and windows to celebrate term themes. Thanks for your comment.

      Reply
  2. Andrea King

    I theme a term around a major library event usually. For example in Term 1 our theme is always around Library Lovers Day (Month) and I have a theme for that for example 2024 was “Libraries for Life”, 2025 is something like “Inspire, Love, Explore: Your future in books”. Term 2 is all about Fandoms as the Library run a whole school Fandom day near the end of the term with food and drinks for sale to raise funds for a charity. Term 3 is Book Week, I haven’t done much with Term 4 due to the varying dates of all the year levels, except for the “Return the books home for the holidays” which I could theme in with Book Week quite well this year.

    Reply

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