Manga Day

I had booked a Manga artist, but they had to cancel on me. I booked another, but I had to cancel them due to a disagreement over terms. So I decided to go for it alone! We had some Japanese food (Miso soup, rice crackers and Japanese sweets) which the students enjoyed trying (as you can see by the empty plates!).

We had a quiz on Japan, a quiz about Naruto, access to internet, reading and drawing. It was a lovely session, and the students who took part all produced something, and it gave them a chance to meet other fans of manga.

I hope to have an actual artist in next year.

World Cup Library Display

A quick display we put up for the World Cup. It has a range of fiction and non-fiction as well as our library quiz.

Don't judge a book by its cover

This is new display on my desk. The books are wrapped up in neon paper, with their barcode typed on the front and a few key words to give a few clues about the book.

They have been very popular! The rule is if you take a book, you open it at home (although many can't wait that long!), give it a good go, and come back and tell me about it. Anyone who does that gets entered into a prize draw.

Read a Movie, Watch a Book

Again, a poor quality photo, apologies. Just a basic display about books becoming films. The writing at the bottom of the display says, 'People have spent millions of pounds turning these stories into films. They must be good books.'

Rainbow front facing books

Again, another photo showing how I try and use all the space I can to display front facing books. It also shows how much we love using colour coding in our displays. These books are in rainbow order going around our computer area.

Library Display in a Classroom

A teacher agreed to letting me put up a library display in her room. Apologies for the poor picture quality.
It is an EAL/SEN room and the teacher has a lot of bright displays that focus on vocabulary.

This display has the word 'Library' in 12 languages, as well as photos of multi-cultural readers. It has the library timetables and what you can borrow.

The teacher was very happy with it, and really felt it fitted with the rest of her displays.

Visit to Peckham Library

My line manager recommended that I visit Peckham library, as a new library in a deprived area, so that I could reflect upon how they reach their target market (which is similar to our target market).

I took this photo as I approached the building, which certainly stands out! I'm not sure how well this style of building will 'age', as I don't exactly feel it is beautiful, but time will tell!

They use a lot of front facing books, in the same way that I try to.

It felt a little like they had spent so much on the actual building, they didn't have much left for the interior. It felt very much like any other library I have visited in the last 20 years.

It was busy, so I tried to notice how people were using the space. Many of the tables had people working on their laptops, with some people reading.

The children's library was sectioned off in a glass-walled room, so the noise didn't infiltrate the rest of the library.