Having a Poké Ball

Our summer programming usually goes through the end of August, and like public librarians everywhere, we’re exhausted once it’s over. Generally in August I try and give our team a break from decorating, and we “reset” the library to a neutral state. Which can be fun since it’s generally when we get the most compliments (usually via the “oh – you didn’t do anything this month – I always love seeing what you all do!” sort of way). But every-once-in-a-while there comes a décor opportunity that we can’t pass by.

It was that case this past August.

The Pokémon Go! phenomena was in full swing, and one of our staff members (::waves hi:: to Ashlynn) was totally hooked. So I asked her if she’d like to put together a Pokémon Go! Crawl event. After I got up from the floor and recovered from her hugtackle, I then asked Natasia to do something in the windows, but not go too crazy. I swear that I have the best Marketing Minion ever – check out what she did:

SHAPOW!

These were a HUGE hit with people of all ages. Besides the Pokémon Go! Crawl event (which was also an ENORMOUS hit), we had a Pokémon scavenger hunt irl for kids who didn’t have the ability to access the app for any reason. That was extremely popular as well.

Natasia created the supremely and simply cool display. We filled it with gaming and computer books.

I also made our cute dragon mascot peek out of a pokéball for some marketing materials.

Natasia also used dry erase markers to create these Pokémon on our whiteboard. We anticipated kids touching them, and it wasn’t a big deal at all – they were easily touched-up.

With Ashlynn’s help, I put together this fun collage of Pokémon found in our library to share on social media:

And finally, I put together a bunch of Pokémon-ized book covers that I found on the webz, printed them out, and put them up in our Young Adult section:

I’m so glad that my team made the effort to do more work than usual post-summer programming. It was a great experience for both patrons and staff alike.