Visual Elements in the Media Center

Visual images are -- and have been -- important throughout the Ages. Images tell stories, promote businesses on billboards, advertise products on TV, websites and in retail stores. Primitive images in caves tell stories of how life used to be long ago. Today, in library media centers and book stores, images illustrate stories and cover books.  
Sometimes, a vendor will send the original book cover with the imprinted library-bound version. I never throw these away. Never! They are beautiful works of art and they entice readers to read. I revisited my book cover collection in the storage room this week to re-do the glass case near the media center's entrance. Some of these covers have been with me since the school opened in 2002. So, I dug down into the pile and pulled out Harry Potter, Larten Crepsley, M.C. Higgins and the Great and Powerful Oz. I visited Wayside School, the Little House on the Prairie, and Middle Earth. I felt a chill when I came across The Ghost in Room 11 and The House of Dies Drear. I worried again about the great coon dog, Sounder, and about White Fang, the half dog, half wolf. 
I will get to the glass case in a few days. After all, I like what's in there now: photos of last year's Shelf Managers in "shelf label poses." I laminated the old book covers and put them together with clear book tape. Then, in a Pinterest kind of frenzy, I decorated an ugly cart no one ever wants to borrow. I impressed myself so much that I created "Chair Talkers" (book covers taped to the back of the computer chairs). 
Of course, these spurts of creation came between checking in, checking out, answering questions, shelving books, updating shelf lists... and getting a scanner connected to a computer so students may scan ISBNs for Lexile codes on the books not yet labeled. (Thanks Mike Robbins, Technologist Extraordinaire!) And, I had to finish the script for the Plot on Plotagon for orientations. (Don't you just love Text To Speech -- TTS programs?) 
The photos are here. I'll keep you posted!
--# GS
"Images often function as information, but they are also aesthetic and creative objects that require additional levels of interpretation and analysis. Finding visual materials in text-based environments requires specific types of research skills." --ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education

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