Display - Blind Date with a Book

Our teen summer reading theme this year is Realm of the Unknown. While trying to come up with a display idea, I stumbled on a post written by the Calcasieu Parish Public Library in Lake Charles, LA (their blog is now defunct). They tried out a Blind Date with a Book display, and had quite a bit of success with it. My interest piqued, I looked for other libraries who did the same thing.

I picked out teen books that I knew were good, but for some reason or another had been collecting dust. Each book's bar code was scanned and another was made. I then wrapped each book in brown paper, placed the bar code and instruction label on it. Some libraries chose to keep the genre a secret, but I wrote it on the label to ensure a better match-up.

The labels say: Check out this book, take it home, and unwrap it. Show it your favorite spots to read, share your favorite snacks, or show it off to your friends. Who knows, maybe there’s a future for the two of you? This book seeks (genre) lovers.

Within an hour of the display going up, more than half of the books were checked out. I hadn't anticipated such an occurrence, so I happily scrambled around for more books to wrap up and display. I now have a stack ready to go, just in case.

I had toyed with making a pocket to leave the comment card in for each book, but that would have required making a cover that would stay on, notifying other branches of the program, and trying to find a way to get the book back without the card falling out. Those options would work for a single-building system or if multiple branches did the same program.

If all continues to go well, I might just do it again for Valentine's Day next year!

Here are the PDFs of my files:
Sign
Labels
Rate Your Date Card

Check out these other librarians who have tried this display:

• Little Thoughts About Books
• Miss Bibliophile
• Maplewood Library