Be Our Valentine

We are going to host a small Valentine Event in the Library this year. We are keeping it simple. We will post signs around the school saying “Be our VALENTINE, bring your lunch to the Library to eat on Feb. 14^th”. I have repainted some wooden hearts we already had, black and white. I will use these hearts as my table displays, with some books that the student book club has picked out as good Valentines Books. I will have cards by the display saying “It’s not just BLACK and WHITE, it’s read all over”. I will then have the student’s name that picks the book for the display. “Recommended by Susie Que”. Then I have a little surprise planned. The surprise will not be advertised on our signs or in the announcements, but for those that come to eat their lunch in the Library, we will be giving them a small valentine, a warm cupcake. Lucy will be making them in her, Babycakes, cupcake maker. We will have several frostings available and they can choose and frost their cupcake for dessert.

Lucy & Ethel's DIY Project

We needed more space in the Manga/Graphic Novel section of the Library. We needed to move the current magazine issues out of that section and ideally over to the the area where we check out back issues of magazines.

But how?


After a lot of brainstorming, we came up with this. We had the maintenance department attach 3 wood strips to the wall. (I had already measured and knew how many strips the wall would hold. I got the feeling that the maintenance guys did not believe me, based on all the, "are you sure this is what you want" I heard. I showed them the project when completed and they were duly impressed.) Then I measured, and installed 33 small screws to the wooden strips on which the 33 plastic buckets would hang. Finally, we added some labels to fronts of the buckets. There you have it.


The cost of our new magazine display was $34.12. Small Screws $1.12 at local hardware store and 33 Dollar Tree plastic buckets for $33.00. Boards were free from the maintenance department. (I had some wood strips I had found in the shop class, but maintenance said I could not use salt-treated inside the building. They brought wood strips that looked 10 times better than my scraps.) By the way, our Maintenance department rocks. They are in the Library within 2 days after a work order is put in. (This could be because Lucy and Ethel scare them, because they are worried about what we will do on our own. If I call and ask for hand tools, they are there within 2 hours!)

A Page in Black History

Several years ago I made about 14 single sided scrapbook pages, with an unusual black history fact on it. I made the pages 8½ X 11 and slipped them into sheet protectors. During Black History Month we place the pages in the middle of each table in the Library; every few days I move the pages around to different tables (so that the student who sits at the same table every day would get to see different sheets). The pages are bright and colorful, to catch your attention. I have reused them over and over again. Below are some of the people and/or events I used for the scrap booking sheets.

* John Myers-WWII Test Pilot
* Quilts-Secret Slave quilt code
* Marie Laveau-Voodoo Queen
* Henry O. Flipper-1st Black Graduate of West Point

P.S. If you’re not a scrap booker this could be a project for a history class, a contest for students, or a Volunteer project for someone to do.

P.S.S. This would work for Women's History Month, Native American Heritage Month, etc.

Recycling and Cute to Boot

We have four rather large showcases outside our Library (silly architect)! Mind you, they are showcases not bulletin boards, so they need to have 3D items in them. One of my pet peeves is an empty showcase or bulletin board. Here is what I came up with as a quick fix, when other groups are not using the showcase and they are empty. I collect very large cardboard boxes (like filing cabinet boxes) and cut them into large panels for drawing. Then I use that old monster called the Opaque Projector to draw on the cardboard panels. I use things like clipart books that are not copy righted. Once I have the picture outlined in pencil, I trace over it with black marker, paint it, and cut it out with a hobby knife or box cutter. The figures are almost life size--each has a word bubble sign. It only takes a few minutes to put them in or take them out of the showcases. I have made several sets that I will just reuse. Click on the slideshare below to see our latest display!

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Dry Erase Markers

Here’s a neat trick. We like to write on our windows in the Library. This Christmas, my window markers were just not working very well--we could hardly see them. So I grabbed a white board dry erase marker and it worked better than the markers made for windows! I already had a bunch, in all different colors. We left the writing on the windows for about 20 days and it came right off with water and/or glass cleaner.

P.S. we love to use rubber cement to hang letters or fliers on the windows also. When you take them down just wash the window and it comes right off.

Jazz it up! Recycle and Reuse

Our school has some really old looking AV carts rolling around in it. When the teachers come to check one out and we try to give them the old green cart instead of the newer black ones, they whine, "Can I have that one over there? It's prettier". This drives me crazy so I started thinking about how can I give these poor unattractive carts a make-over. Here's what I came up with. Details:

Can of black spray paint - Wal-Mart $0.96.

2 Grip-It-No-Slip Placemats on Clearance - Targets $0.25 each.

Can of green paint I picked up from the school yard the Sunday after Homecoming. I try to go out to the school the weekend after homecoming. Kids have taken apart their floats and have left wonderful treasures behind.

A little creativity and about an hour of my time total. (10 minutes spray painting it black, 45 minutes painting dots.)

Ta Da! Now every teacher wants to check out "my little Pygmalion"

Options: I have also just painted them a pretty color and used one roll of the Grip-It-No-Slip shelf liner from Dollar Tree to cover the shelfs. ($1.00 per roll - one roll will make a runner down 3 shelves). If you don't have the time, energy, or talent, send the carts to your art department and let the students jazz them up.

Give us your ideas

Thoughts on shelving and student input....

Lucy and Ethel have found that in our media center, opening up the shelves by rearranging books, constantly weeding, and even purchasing more shelving has increased our circulation of books, especially in the non-fiction section. We try to put as many books on display with fronts forward as we can. I, Lucy, am a weeding fanatic--I have no problems throwing away books that either haven't circulated in several decades, that are nasty looking, have ugly covers, etc. If you have trouble weeding, or need suggestions, check out Florida's amazing Sunlink site! They also have a new book out on weeding. If you have problems throwing away a book, get your teachers to do an altered book project with some of your undesirables! If you don't know what an altered book is, click here. I have purchased several books from Amazon on making altered books--my teachers beg me for my discards, we are keeping books out of landfills, etc.



If you're like Ethel and me, you have at least one library pet peeve--one thing that just drives you nuts. Ours pet peeve is when some darling teen walks along our shelves, and slams all the books to the back of the shelves! (Isn't it amazing what can annoy a person?) If this is your pet peeve, try the solution that Ethel came up with. She has had our techs save every bit of the white Styrofoam packing material that comes with computers. She then placed it behind the short books on our shelves and now our books can't be pushed to the back, nor can a darling student throw books behind the others! It also keeps the stuff out of the landfill. Ethel is thinking of some way to make these more attractive--when she comes up with that idea, I'll post it!