It’s hard to believe that it’s already time to think about planning for August collection promotions. Exactly which displays, online posts, or other passive readers advisory themes you pick will depend upon your library and patrons.
From Web Holidays, there are daily, weekly, and monthly options. There aren’t any major holidays to consider so that leaves much of the month open. You may have to schedule your displays around the ending of summer reading for youth and adults.
Given that there are many food related celebrations, one option is to group together several of them and set up a display with cookbooks and fiction with the various food types in the title. This would be a great display to mirror with your youth collection. Cookbooks are popular with children in my library when they are promoted with a display.
Romance awareness month is a great time to promote your romances and love stories that need some attention. You can promote romance outside of Valentine’s Day. People may add certain kinds of fiction to their TBR based upon the time of year but fans of a genre read it all year.
You can use the above ideas for a month long display leading up to the start of school and fall. Add smaller displays, up for a week or less, to other parts of your library. Adding some shorter lived displays will allow for more staff to be involved and will create more interest for those who come into your building on a regular basis.
Harriet Quimby day is August 2. This day celebrates the day in 1911 when Quimby became the first woman in the United States to obtain a pilot’s license. In 1912, she became the first woman to fly solo across the English Channel. Beyond fiction and non-fiction books about pilots and flying, include DVDs with the theme. I would expand the display to include titles about women’s firsts in a variety of areas. I would suggest this one for a week because it might become too time consuming to fill in for an entire month. More general ideas work better for that.
International Day of the World’s Indigenous People was established by the United Nations in 1994. Search through your collection for titles related to any of the indigenous peoples in the world. This is August 9th which will take you through the second week of the month.
The next week includes National Thrift Shop Day on August 17. This is a great day to use in conjunction with programming related to upcycling clothing from thrift shops. While teens will enjoy that program, don’t forget adults. Set up displays with books about thrifting, clothing design and alterations. If your library has a blog or uses social media, invite patrons to submit photos of their own thrifted outfits. You could even have a fashion show for attendees to strut their stuff in your library. Partner with a local craft or sewing shop to demonstrate the how to’s of clothing alteration and customization.
For the end of the month, there is an option with an easy passive program. One is to celebrate Find Your Inner Nerd Day on August 23rd. Set up a display about various hobbies and interests as well as fiction about people who have a particular obsession. Encourage your patrons to share what they nerd out about either by having a box or bulletin board or on your social media. This is an easy passive program and may help those who love bird watching, trains, or crochet to find their people
There are some more serious options for the end of the month such as International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition also on August 23rd or Individual Rights Day on August 29th. You could combine these with side-by-side displays to encourage patrons to think about both the crimes and terror of the past while also considering the state of individual rights today. Know your community and library leadership when picking display topics. I think a best practice is to balance weighty and serious displays with more fun and frivolous ones. This may help your message get across.
Please reach out if you have ideas for August displays or if you would like to talk to me about setting up a display schedule for your library!
