The Artful Book Display: Getting It Right

The other day I posted my most popular tweet of all time. I didn’t really mean to but, as with most things on the internet, it’s never the tweet or the post that is most important to you that catches on like wildfire. In this particular case I was at Anderson’s Bookstore in Naperville to see Jason Reynolds speak about his new Spiderman/Miles Morales book series. Naperville isn’t particularly close, but these days that man’s worth driving hundreds of miles to see. Until this day I’d only ever been to Anderson’s location in LaGrange, and at one point I had a little time to kill. I wandered about and saw this book display:

Which led to this tweet:

What’s so clever about a display like this is that it allows the bookstore to sell a wide variety of new books in an eye-catching display done, you have to admit, with very little work. All the employees had to do was print out the little signs and select the books. Batta bing, batta boom.

At my public library I do the adult book displays and having to come up with original collections can be tricky. Surprisingly, I haven’t been able to locate a website or blog that brings together all the different kinds of displays that are out there. There are some Pinterest pages, absolutely, but I would love a site entirely dedicated to them.  Maybe one exists.?Public, I put it to you! Does such a thing exist? I know that the blog Library Displays is now defunct.  Has anyone plucked up the mantle?

I’m also quite fond of children’s book displays located in places where children’s books are not a given. For example, here is a display I discovered recently at my local bike shop Bucephalus Bikes:

It was Eti Berland who saw this and wrote to me, “Celebrating literacy found in community spaces. Sounds like a blog post that needs to exist :)”  She’s absolutely right, of course, but it’s tricky.

In no way can this blog be the site for all those great displays. . . . but, if you wanted to send me some that you think are particularly keen I’d be more than happy to include them here. In the meantime, here are some links you might find helpful in your display-ing:

• Twenty Rules for Better Book Displays
• 13 Awesome Library Displays – From Bookriot
• How to Create Awesome Book Displays – Also from Bookriot
• 27 Insanely Clever Ways to Display Your Books – From Buzzfeed

It’s a start.

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