How-to Resources and a Quick Display Idea

Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) has posted about a list of animated research tutorials from Acadia University.  These include tips on doing a research project, avoiding plagiarism and search techniques.  Worth a look.

Jeff Utecht (@jutecht) describes how he uses students as tech mentors for staff.  His group of Gr. 4 & 5 students are doing some remarkable work.  This might spark some ideas for putting those library helpers to work.

How to create a quick display.  Displays that really pop often have large, interesting lettering.  This week I created a display of Buried Treasures focusing on pirate themed & hidden treasure books.  First I downloaded a couple of free fonts from Fontspace, one to create the letters and one to create a border.  I chose Treasure Map Deadhand for the letters and Flood for the border images.  To create the border just choose the images in any order you want.  Setting the page at landscape will give you longer strips when you cut them out.

This is one of those rare times you'll get to use font size 600!  Choosing 'outline effect' let's you use coloured paper to create letters of different colours.  Print and cut out the letters.

Tips for laying out your words nicely:   Lay the letters out on a table and count all letters and spaces between the words.  Divide by two to determine the centre point and then staple the letters to the bulletin board working from the middle out.  A piece of string attached with some pushpins makes a good guide for keeping letters straight and is easily removed when you're done.

I poached a couple of masks from the English department, added some eye patches and was done.