Friday, March 6

Library Display: March Madness

Update: Due to the popularity of this post, I've uploaded the bracket sign images here. They fit onto standard letter-sized paper. Just save them to your computer, open them in your favorite editor and add the dates of your voting periods! 
Elite 8  Final 4  Top 2  Number 1

I admit it: I enjoy creating library displays. I also enjoy creating a bracket for March Madness (even though I have no idea which teams are better). So it only made sense to make this display with my coworker:



To pick our competitors, we pulled the top circulated items in our juvenile collection. What was funny, however, is that even with a list of the top 100 books circed, it was really just eleven or twelve series. Yep. In fact, our top ten includes eight of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. So instead of making it a competition between books in the same series, we simply selected the top circed book in each of the series. And then we pulled a few top YA books, so that we'd have sixteen competitors.


Starting with the Sweet Sixteen, each week in March, we'll let patrons vote on which book is better amid our competitors. Each book with the most votes will move on to the Elite Eight, then the Final Four, etc., etc., until we pick our winner at the end of the month. Those who make predictions (who fill out their own bracket) are eligible to win prizes.

We'll also have the books and other books in the series available for checkout, in case people want to see why these books are so great of competitors. Of course.

Hopefully it works! Wish us luck!

12 comments:

  1. What a fun idea, I want to play!

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  2. Love your window display! Did you make the vote basket? Last year we decorated a box, but would like to change it to your vote basket.

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    1. Thanks! I did make the voting basket, yes. Here's some brief instructions: I wrapped a small bucket (think like an ice cream tub) in black paper and made a cardboard lid with a slot to put in votes. The actual basket part is an orange embroidery hoop that I cinched around the bucket. The net I made with some string knotted to the hoop. Backboard is another piece of cardboard. Hope that helps!!

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  3. Hello Emily,
    What is written under "Final Four" etc.? Also, do you have instructions as to how you set it all up? Thanks!

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    1. Sure thing! Under the "final four" type signs is the date--each Friday in March is when we would put up each round of winners after the voting that week. I'll need to find my original files but I should be able to put up a template tomorrow. Use my contact form if you want to email me, so I can email them to you.

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    2. Hi Emily,

      I absolutely love this idea for my classroom! I would like the templates as well, if you don't mind!

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    3. They're now ready to download from the post!

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  4. I was so excited when I came across your post months ago. We are doing "March Madness in Books!" at our library and I used your templates. Thank you for sharing your ideas.

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  5. do you have a template for the voting slips you used or did you just use scratch paper?

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    1. We had slips that listed the titles "competing" against each other (e.g. "Dork Diaries vs. Judy Moody in Round 16"). People would circle their favorite title and put that slip in the voting basket. It wasn't anything too fancy!

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  6. Where did you get the basketball print outs?

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  7. fantastic! Thank you very much. I am very happy to find your website!

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