Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Bulletin Board - Non-Fiction

In my library, the children's non-fiction is set up in a pretty interesting way. Instead of rows and aisles of books, our non-fiction collection wraps around the room, covering two whole walls. Above these shelves I have a good amount of bulletin board space to play with. But what should I do with this space?

Remember, I personally believe that library bulletin boards should be both useful and decorative. And what better use of this unique space than to highlight the non-fiction collection below! I decided to think about the questions that we get fairly regularly from kids seeking materials. Where are the dinosaur books? The sports books? What about joke books? I selected 24 different subjects and made simple signs with the appropriate Dewey call number and the subject name.



Next came the fun part. I went through the non-fiction section and selected 2-3 books from each of these subject areas. I made color copies of the covers of each book, shrunk down in many cases to the appropriate size. A ladder and several dozen pins later and voila! A lovely bulletin board that is both attractive and useful to patrons. Now when they ask us where they can find books about animals (or pirates, or fairy tales, or the weather...) we can use these signs to guide them to the materials they need.

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