Pointing to Places in Books

book place signs
I was inspired a while back by a blog posting by Jennifer LaGarde (aka “library girl”) displaying the terrific book direction signs she made for her school library. As she explained, her inspiration came from Tamara Cox’s (aka “the e-literate librarian) sign post, who, I learned when I checked Tamara’s blog, was inspired in turn by a posting on Pinterest. (Unfortunately, that link is now missing, so I can’t give credit to it.) I knew the moment I saw both their photos that I wanted some signs for the Mira Costa Library. Our library’s decore hasn’t changed since the 1950’s and the colors are very drab. I’ve been trying to find any ways I can to liven it up. What better way than with colorful signs sharing special places in favorite books!

Fortunately for me, since I am definitely not an artist, we have some wonderful art teachers and art students on campus. I contacted art teacher Kate Martin with the idea and was delighted that she was interested. Our biggest challenge, which took us nearly a year to solve, was how we would make the signs adhere to the three round metal poles where I wanted to mount them. The solution finally came recently when one of my volunteers brought in velcro to mount some posters. The balsam wood is very light and the velcro is strong enough to hold it up and also flexible enough to adhere to the slightly rounded surface of the metal poles. Once we knew the velcro would work, Kate Martin, as well as her fellow art teacher, Valerie Park, created assignments to have their students make painted and wood burned signs.

Please enjoy them here, and, better yet, come into the library to see them.

Thanks so much to Jennifer LaGarde and Tamara Cox for the inspiration, to Kate Martin and Valerie Park for leading these projects, and to their students for all the beautiful, creative work. I feel so fortunate that the library can benefit from the generous sharing of a creative concept by some of my fellow librarians and from the talent of Mira Costa students.

And, in the spirit sharing, the photos I have taken of the signs are, of course, Creative Commons-licensed and available on the Mira Costa Flickr site.