Let's Do a Deep Dive on Displays
Last week we talked a little bit about displays in the retail environment versus displays in the library world.
And that kind of got me thinking that we could do some things with library displays a little differently.
AND I could share my personal, unfounded, ridiculously curmudgeonly ideas about book displays in libraries.
The History of Library Displays
After about 10 minutes of Googling, I found a lot of awesome, cozy, wood-grain-infused libraries from the 1980s, but very little in terms of book displays from the time.
Now, this is nowhere near a statement that book displays didn’t exist in the 80s (you could do a search for me from the 80s and find nothing, and yet, I definitely existed in the 80s). And we ALWAYS have to remember, when looking at older library photos, that photography was not free and easy like it is now in the 80s, 90s, and even early 2000s. People probably took far fewer pictures of their book displays in the 80s than they do today. “Pics or it didn’t happen” was a pretty unreasonable stance at the time.
Space was a lot more of a challenge in the 80s because everything was physical, and lots of things were bigger. The card catalog was a lot bigger than a computer. The vinyl records took up a lot more space than the CDs. The newspapers were a BIG deal. Most libraries also had a more robust physical archive of newspapers and magazines, maybe some kind of microfilm/fiche.
All this to say: I would be willing to venture that a display boom probably came about in the early 2000s. With weird spaces and tables and cutouts emptied out by removal of equipment or special collections, with the ease of printing, and with the explosion of the internet so that you could look up display ideas in an instant, it seems pretty likely that a convergence of factors resulted in a lot more displays in a lot more libraries. Combine that with retail ideas entering the library world (the term “merchandising” is often used to talk about book displays) and you’ve got a pretty good setup for DISPLAY MADNESS.
And at this point, before I release a scare film about the effects of DISPLAY MADNESS, I should point out that this is ALL theory, by the way, backed by some guesswork and the proliferation of studies, blogs, and other media about library displays from the 2010s, including entries from BYU, School Library Journal, Knowledge Quest, YALSA, and others.
I think it’s fair to say that libraries have taken the display game more seriously over the last decade or so, both in quantity and in quality, than they have in the past.
Managing Display Statuses
Usually a library will have different statuses in the catalog, so if you look up a book that’s on display, the catalog should say, “On Display” or something similar.
This is something the staff does so that when someone goes looking for a book, they have a hint that it’s probably not exactly where it normally sits.
You can always ask for these books, put them on hold, and do all of those things.
Now, some libraries, unfortunately, will do things like checking display books out on a specific account, usually because their catalog doesn’t offer a display status that will label the item as on display while also allowing someone to check it out.
Library staffs: Don’t do this. Seriously, this is not a good practice. What this means is that self checkouts won’t work for the patron who picks something up off a display. What THIS means is that checking out a display book is a big hassle. What THIS means is that they aren’t going to check out another display book because who needs the headache?
Here’s an ordered list of needs for display books:
Must be checkout-able by the patron without additional screwing around.
Should be indicated as being on display in the catalog in some way.
If it’s easy and reasonable, you can be specific about which display it’s on.
Now, the way the order works here, you NEED number 1 before you can move on to number 2. If your catalog does not let you show it as being on display in some way without making it hard to check out, then forget it. Sorry, you’ll just have to deal with it.
I can feel the balking, but consider: someone looking for a title on display, who can’t see it’s on display, will have to come to the desk and ask. And, someone who picks a book up off a display and can’t check it out will also have to come to the desk.
Which is why, in my mind, it’s better to just put a book on a display without changing the status than it is to change the status in such a way that someone can’t check it out.
A disorganized portion of the collection!? Oh, crap. I can hear the library cops banging on my door already, coming to take my diploma away!
What Are They Good For? (Something? Absolutely! Wow, I really managed to mangle that lyric)
I think displays can serve a few purposes and do a good job of it:
Move books out the door. That’s probably the best reason to make and fill a display. This can be the primary goal or a sub-goal of the other two.
Promote a new service or event at the library. If you have a guest poet coming, putting up a display of that author’s work, along with some other, similar poets, is a great way to drum up some interest. It’s your library equivalent of a billboard. The weakness is that it’s in-library, but when it comes to certain types of events, like author talks, you’re probably reaching your core audience within the library’s walls most times.
To show the library has a sense of humor, sense of fun, and to show the staff is composed of real, live humans. I’m putting these all in the same category, and the prime example is a Staff Picks display. It shows the library has a sense of taste (that may be surprising), and it shows that library staff are real people with interests and tastes of their own. This can also be a good tool if your library has a reputation for being super stuffy and unfriendly. Show people that you like the same things they do. It won’t fix the problem, but it’s a start.
Book Quantity on Display
Take a look at this Barnes and Noble display table:
Fairly typical in size, has about 28 unique titles, and I would guess something approaching 100 books in total.
Here’s a library display:
Probably about 20 books in total.
Libraries have a tougher time doing multiple copies, and I totally get that. That part isn’t so much the library’s fault.
The problem with low quantity, though, is that you have to refresh it often. The even bigger problem is that browsers tend to feel weird about taking something off a small, carefully built, elaborate display. They don’t want to “mess up” something that someone clearly worked hard on.
The pressure on the Barnes & Noble table is lower. The books are just stacked, layered. Not propped up, and not the only copy.
Taking books off this display can bother the super polite patron who doesn’t want to “ruin” your hard work. If you’ve worked in a library before, you’ve heard this.
It can also bother a shy patron who has this feeling that when they pick up a display book, balloons and streamers are going to fall from the ceiling, and the staff is going to rush out and start singing a copyright-safe birthday song. The PATRON also feels on display in this setup.
The Fix:
I know lots of libraries wouldn’t want to put out a Barnes & Noble style table with different titles underneath the ones on top, but hear me out:
A display can hold a lot more books that way, it can be a little more interesting, it’s self-refreshing, and if the titles on top are different from the titles on the bottom, it ENCOURAGES looking through what’s there. It tells the patron, “I built this with layers, and the only way to explore the layers is to take a look.”
Yes, it might be annoying for someone trying to find a specific book. But you should probably be using most of your display space for things that aren’t going to be put on hold tomorrow, anyway (if it’s about to go on hold, if it’s still pretty close to peak popularity, the time set to put it on display is usually wasted).
You can stack different titles on a table. Seriously! Put John Greens in a stack. It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.
The Quality Issue
Libraries love their plastic covers. And I get it, it helps the items have an extended life.
If something looks like shit, though, don’t put it on display. If you handle your display books and feel like you should wash your hands, you’ve probably made a bad display choice.
If they look REALLY bad, send them to the department that recovers them (provided the item is in good enough shape otherwise, or rare enough otherwise, to warrant recovering as opposed to ordering a new copy).
I love old books, I love some books that look really terrible, and at the same time, I have to recognize that displays are somewhat about appearance. When the appearance says to me, “Ever gotten a rash from a comic book before?” I am not super likely to take that bad boy home.
As a quick aside here, if there are books to shabby to be on display, consider whether they might be ready for replacement. I know not everything can be replaced, and not every library can spend budget this way, but, in your mind, try and shrink the overlap of the two circles in the Venn Diagram labeled “Books too crappy to be on display, but not too crappy to be in the collection.”
If it’s not good enough for your display, it might not be good enough for someone’s home, which is where we’re hoping they’ll take it.
Locked Display Cabinets
Ugh, we used to have these, and they’re not worth it.
NOBODY comes up to the desk and asks to check out a book in the case. Because who wants to have someone fetch some keys, walk out to the lobby (“Should I follow them, should I just wait here at the desk? Now there’s a line forming behind me. What do I do?”), and bring back something that they could just NOT check out.
These displays are great if you want to put non-library stuff in them, artwork or other items, but they are just terrible for library items. Because they are specifically designed to send the message: DO NOT TOUCH. There’s an actual physical barrier between you and the books. It’s easier to touch a dinosaur skeleton at the museum than it is to touch these items, which are supposedly for checkout. How does that make any sense?
The Fix: Get someone to come in and take the doors off the display, boom, done.
You might also need to reinforce the shelving to be sturdier or, you know, not made of sheets of glass (also a staple of these displays). But it’s really not a huge issue.
Now, you might need to also kind of rewire your thinking on these, because I see a lot of these in lobbies and out-of-the-way spots where I think people fear item theft.
I think, for the most part, you can put items in a lobby display, and 9 patrons out of 10 aren’t going to see this as a golden opportunity to lift a copy of Grapes of Wrath. If you’re really concerned about it, just be smart about what you put in there. If your most-stolen items are anything like ours and it’s hard to keep astrology, witchcraft and Insane Clown Posse CDs on the shelf, just don’t put that stuff out there. In fact, maybe put stuff out there that you wouldn’t mind seeing walk out the door. If someone wants to steal The Taming of the Shrew from my library, I say let ‘em. It’s so cheap and so educational, we could probably absorb the loss.
Picture of Book Covers on Displays
Now, I know what’s happening here and why this display is a bunch of PICTURES OF books instead of being BOOKS. When it’s Battle of the Books time, you’re not going to have any copies on hand.
[also, an aside: what maniac installed that outlet or switch or whatever in the left-hand third of a bulletin board? Why would this exist? Sometimes the construction done on schools and libraries is maddening, like being inside The Joker’s brain or something]
When it comes to pictures instead of books on a display: Yeah, no.
Let me ask you a question: Do you go to the grocery store and see pictures of food, separate from the actual food?
Do you go to an art supply store and see pictures of the yarn instead of the actual yarn?
The Fix: If you don’t have the books on hand, they don’t need to be on display. They’re checked out! They’re doing great without the help!
In the above example with Battle of the Books titles, why not do a display that says, “Got through Your BotB books? Try these similar titles!”?
Displays for Digital Books
Repeat after me: Digital Displays for Digital Books.
Use your website, your social media, and your digital displays to promote digital books from Libby or Hoopla. Use blogs. Use Goodreads. Use something that puts the eBook one click away.
I would also give the thumbs up to doing something like creating QR code bookmarks and slipping them into the physical books that you know are available digitally. Not necessarily because you expect people to check out the eBook instead, but because it might encourage people to think that the eBook collection is actually pretty good.
I…Kinda Hate Bookstands
While I get their purpose, and while they’re good for putting in the stacks, I HATE bookstands on display tables.
Why?
Because I’m a clumsy oaf. And when you’re a clumsy oaf, you don’t want to pick something up that’s been placed in a stand like this.
Because I’ll fumble it or fuck it up or generally make a mess of it.
They also make the display look abandoned when a few of the books are taken and you’ve got this wire skeleton where a book once was.
And I think these are…a bit of a scam played on libraries. They only hold books of certain sizes, you have to get all sorts of different stands for different things, they ruin the page edges of books that are too big or heavy for them.
The Fix: Try just laying your display books flat on waist-height tables. Seriously. See if it reduces your checkouts. I don’t think it will.
If nothing else, though, I would avoid this style:
The problem with these guys is that you have to get a whole array of sizes, even though you’ll mostly use only one or two different sizes 99% of the time. They’re a little light, they don’t have the counterbalance of the wire display stands, so they tip over easily.
And acrylics, in general, look awesome for about a year, then they get scuffed and just look cheap and ugly after. Wire stands ain’t pretty, but they get the job done, they’re easier to store, they work for a better variety of sizes, and when you use them right, you shouldn’t really see them anyway.
Curmudgeonly Point 1:
These are a few points that are specific to me, a grumpus.
I do not like color-themed displays
I completely understand why people make them, and, yes, they are fun to look at. Buuuut I don’t think these result in checkouts because the only time someone comes in looking for a book of a specific color is when they are looking for a book they have read, vaguely remember, and attempt to use the color to locate it again.
In other words, this ends up being a display of completely unrelated titles, so it doesn’t help a patron look through the collection, maybe not an A+ way to move books.
Curmudgeonly Point 2: “Holiday” Displays
If you’ve worked in a library, you’re probably familiar with Chase’s Calendar of Events, a gigantic reference book that lists holidays like Donut Day.
I am opposed to this because Donut Day should be kept sacred and far, far away from crass commercialization. Imagine trying to sell books based on this important cultural event!
But seriously, when people do these displays, I think it’s usually because they don’t know what to do a display on. And if you don’t have an idea, maybe don’t do a display.
Use a goofy holiday (or a serious, donut-related one) if you’ve got great titles related to it. But if you don’t have any ideas, “Recently Returned” and “New” are usually winners.
Curmudgeonly Point 3: Genre Displays
While I think it’s possible to move Mysteries, your better bet is to take your genre displays a step further. Mysteries that take place in the southwest. Mysteries with women detectives. If you like Longmire, you’ll like these mysteries.
This introduces people to something they will likely enjoy, probably haven’t heard of, and may not venture into without some prompting.
Curmudgeonly Point 3.5: Poetry, Plays, Short Stories
One book of poetry is nothing like another, really. One play is nothing like the one next to it, really.
I love poetry, and a “Poetry” display is useless to me as a reader of the form because Jorie Graham and Charles Bukowski are nothing alike. They work in the same sort of medium, but that’s a little like saying me and Monet have something in common because I painted over a patched hole in some drywall one time.
Basically, these are not much better than a display that says, “Books.”
Our classifications help us keep things in order, but they don’t do a good job of accounting for style, and style is EVERYTHING to a reader, even if they don’t know it.
And let’s look at it from another angle: you can put Rupi Kapur on a display with Robert Frost, and huge poetry fans will find something to like about both. But…huge poetry fans don’t need to be told about either of these folks. They’re aware.
Meanwhile, casual or non-fans will not really find those two reading experiences super similar, so you might do them a disservice by placing them together.
Consider, instead of making a poetry display, can you add in a book of poems to your other displays?
When you have a Halloween display, can a couple short story collections find their way in there?
Curmudgeonly Point 4: Diversity Displays
Okay, deep breath, I kind of told you that last one to warm you up to this one:
I’m not a huge fan of Black History Month displays. Or Pride displays. Or Women’s History Month displays.
Not because I think they are bad or the books on them are bad, but because I think the way forward in 2024 is to include a nice array of different people from different backgrounds in all of your displays.
By all means, put up a Pride display, but why not include Hailey Piper or Eric Larocca in your horror display? Can’t LGBTQIA+ authors play in your other displays, too?
Can you make room for Victor Lavelle and Stephen Graham Jones in your horror displays?
The kind of person who sees a book on a Black History Month display and is like, “Fuck that shit,” is the exact kind of person who might benefit from picking up a Victor Lavelle book, reading it, and flipping to the author photo in the back and discovering the author of this awesome book is Black.
Truth be told, I think the right thing is to do both. Do a Black History Month display, AND include Black authors in your other displays. But I think lots of libraries do one and not the other, have a display for a given month and then call it good. And if I had to pick one or the other, I’m picking a good mix of authors in their chosen genres.