Booked Inn

And so, with a Kevin Rudd BER new school library to be built on the site of my school’s existing, antiquated, portable library, further plans for renovating the current building went on permanent hiatus. I am very glad I only lightly nailed my internal signage to the walls, rather than gluing them, because almost everything I created in the last twelve months will be able to find a home in the new building. At the time of the announcement, I had already had a visit from Phyl Williamson, of Syba Signs, to give me quotations on perspex outdoor signage, an internal sign, a selection of poster hangers and mobiles, and vinyl lettering for the windows, etc. These ideas (and funding) have now had to await the new building, of course.

I’ve been asked to do a presentation on my shoestring makeovers for an upcoming ASLA professional development day, at my school (Saturday 31st October) and, during the last school holidays, I suddenly found myself really regretting not being able to finish off my plan to get a large outdoor sign made. Something that identifies the building as a “Library”!

My temporary external sign has turned out to be so successful, I wanted to share it.

Kevin Hennah’s course on library renovations reminded us about how commercial stores have huge signs featuring their identity, and yet so many public buildings – and especially libraries – seem to keep their identity a secret to passersby. The day I started snapping photographs of the library, pre-renovation (this time last year), the very first shot was of our extremely dull, uninformative, external library wall – yes, that all-important wall, seen by every visitor through our main gate. The wall that gives people their first impression of our school:

How would anyone even realise this was the school library?

So, after several fruitless, forlorn visits to both Bunnings’ Hardware, and Spotlight, I went off to a local computerised signage supplier for a quote on a speedy-but-weatherproof sign that might impress people coming to my seminar session. The results were a little disappointing: only slightly less than a perspex sign and – no matter what – I’d be spending between $206 and $250 and still only ending up with one external sign.

I did take one source of inspiration from my Bunnings trip: they had some long, pre-primed, stretched canvases for artists @ $35.00. Maybe I could pull off a miracle with a similar stretched canvas, if I could locate one the right size at a local bargain store? Bingo! “Cheaper Than Chips” at Penrith only had one, but it was a 31 x 102 cm “Paintwell” brand stretched canvas @ $15.95, plus $2.00 for a tube of “Ultra Blue” acrylic paint.

Last night, I enlarged some lettering (upper and lower case, for legibility) from Word on the photocopier, transferred the design to the canvas, taped up the straight lines with packaging tape, and started painting – and suddenly there was a completed sign.

This morning, my clerical assistant helped me cover the canvas with book-covering polythene, which we affixed with a staple gun. I went outside and peeled off the better-quality version of our two “No Smoking” signs, and transferred it to the other end of the wall with fresh double-sided tape. I then used more of the tape to attach my $18 masterpiece to the wall! I’ve been admiring it every chance I could get today. Please allow me to share:

The complete wall, with the “No Smoking” sign at the other end:

NEW YORK, LONDON, PENRITH, AUCKLAND.

Lots of New Zealand jokes these last few weeks. Not terribly politically correct.

While the four new “newsroom” clocks on the library’s freshly painted wall have been paying off as teaching tools in numerous lessons – the students are getting quite a buzz from discussing the four time zones represented, even just in passing – our “Auckland” clock has been falling behind, needing to be reset at least once each morning. Jiggling the battery was losing effect. The battery was checked: yes, fully charged. Still no improvement. Very annoying. Eventually, Auckland time kept stopping whenever its sweep hand reached the 6.

I had been celebrating the fact that I had bought the clocks for such a great price, but they had also also the last stock in the shop. Taking one clock back for a refund was not going to keep my “newsroom” functioning at peak capacity.

Eventually, I brought out the trusty star screwdriver from the staffroom toolbox. The moment the screws were loosened, the clock started ticking again. Somehow the sweep hand had begun to come into regular contact with the glass front. I removed the back of the clock, bent the end of the sweep hand just a tad… and now New Zealand is keeping perfect time again!

Where would teacher-librarians be without a screwdriver?

Phyl Williamson from Syba Signs is coming by on Wednesday morning to give me some quotes on library signage. I’m hoping for a “Time 4 Learning” sign under the clocks, four sets of vinyl lettering for some windows, some poster hangers, and a big external sign so that people won’t have to guess which building is the school library. My fingers are crossed.

It’s time to update my post on reorganising my library nooks, one for Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC) titles – needing a comfy couch – and another for highlighting new titles – requiring some bright signage!

I finally cajoled a friend with a truck to bring my spare two-seater couch from my front veranda (at home), and then I bought a box of purple Dylon dye to change the colour of an old navy blue and beige lounge throw-over. (In fact, I dyed two matching covers, so I could have cushion covers made for the seating area, since the cover itself often slides off when people slump into the couch.)

Why purple? Well, I still didn’t know what colour to make our main wall, but the library owns an original Kim Gamble artwork in gorgeous pastels, and the professional mounting and frame are mauve and purple, so it was important to decorate around this feature.

The dye job worked perfectly. On the way home from the city the other night, I found this wonderful Tigger cushion for $15, marked down from $30 (and with a $45 price tag underneath):

I’m thrilled with the way the couch has turned out! The colour match the picture frame perfectly. Now our Stage 2 and Stage 3 PRC titles are with easy grasp of a relaxing place to browse them.

Meanwhile, I spent the school holidays painting and lacquering some more MDF letters to identify the “NEW” titles (in yellow), and the library’s pink “J” (”Junior”) and green “F” (”Fiction”) sections. The left and right “rocket” arrows are actually wooden doorknob hanger signs, templates intended for craft projects. I used old dustjackets to find appropriate book characters to “drive” the rockets, appearing in the hole normally filled by a doorknob.

Scattered across the “NEW” titles’ shelves are some die-cut “It’s new” signs. $4 for a packet of ten. My reasoning is that “NEW” shelves are often quickly denuded, so at least the signage will keep the area colourful until the shelves can be restocked.

I’m at it again!

There has been considerable mulling going on. While collecting some exciting accolades, both in person and online, I’ve been considering how best to proceed: what bits of the library to work on next – and which will yield maximum returns for minimal outlay?

Considering advice from several people, I decided to splurge another $11.99, at Spotlight, on a second container of the burgundy Derivan Matisse background paint, and to extend the rich splash of colour across the top of the office windows (see below; top right of picture), covering up more of the ugly, varnished woodgrain panelling.

I didn’t end up getting a raw “Before” shot because, up until now, I’ve been avoiding taking this angle from so far back. An ugly piece of thin, grey conduit (leading from a non-functional air conditioner) had been intruding through the airspace, but I was brave yesterday… and I simply removed it. (Last year, an electrical specialist declared Air Conditioner #4 dead. He unhitched one end of the conduit – but some other helpful soul kept restoring the conduit, and/or attempting to switch on the machine.)

Kevin Hennah had suggested, at the recent conference on library design and redesign, that many libraries were now showcasing their URL (of the library’s Internet presence), when creating new signage, and I thought that the far right corner might be balanced with a large white version of the school crest?

Wandering through a local bargain shop yesterday, I found packets of 26 plastic magnetised letters of the alphabet – for only $2.50 a packet. To get sufficient “i”’s, I required four packets. Two “j”’s were forfeited to cut free some full stops for the URL. A spray can of white paint ($13.99) would cover the bright fluoro colours! (And I need some more strong glue, having splurted the last tube all over myself – it must have been faulty at the sealed end.)

But how to mount the letters? I found some long plastic-and-cork “bulletin bars” from Officeworks. At $1.99 each, these were a steal! I’ll be able to fasten the letters securely to two of these plastic bars, and only worry about nailing up the bars, not each individual letter.

Here’s a test of the white-undercoated plastic letters, spelling out the URL of our school library wiki site, lined up for fit on the two now-burgundy bulletin bars:

Total cost of this makeover (so far): $39.96 (but lots of paint and little plastic letters left over). Watch this space!

Like… here:

I raced to finish nailing up my new lettering for my library renovation this afternoon, so I could take a photo for the blog, as promised. At 5.55pm, there were still some adjustments to be made but the school cleaners were ready to depart. And then… a reprieve! The Principal was still on site for the monthly P&C meeting, so I had plenty of time to be a perfectionist. (I can’t tell you how many times I was up and down that ladder today.)

So, here’s the grand unveiling:

Again, Kaisercraft MDF (wooden) letters, from Spotlight, feature. I’d been planning to create several words, perhaps our school’s four core values, from small individual letters; I really wasn’t expecting to find whole words in flowing script (@ $4.99 each). I bought all the words they had in stock. I wonder if they usually stock others? My local Lincraft stocks the individual letters, too, but not the whole words.

I’d failed to consider buying a 250 ml jar of white Derivan “Matisse” while I was there – actually, I assumed these were going to be burgundy, too, until I thought of doing the wall that colour, so a quick trip to a bargain shop in the CBD on Sunday provided me with a $2.50 tube of while acrylic paint instead.

I’m quite thrilled with the result! The library suddenly now has a sleek, yet fun, clean and corporate feel to it. Well, at least when you look in one direction.

Total cost of this renovation: $43.40.

And speaking of a sleek, clean and corporate feel, here’s the first two examples of some new signage created by my library clerical assistant, Louise. Taking to her new assignment with gusto, Louise had heard me talking about Kevin Hennah’s advice on what to do when one simply had to put up some of those ubiquitous laminated signs in the library!

We created a standardised template in Word. Two fonts, as reminiscent of the new MDF lettering on the wall as possible, and with a consistent watermark in the bottom corner of our school logo.

Now any sign, even if only a very temporary “Photocopier out of order”, “Please use other door” or “Meeting in progress” sign, can be made in a matter of seconds and printed out, instead of using a hideous, handwritten scrap of paper, taped or Blu-Tacked to a wall, where it often stays for weeks or months beyond its intended “use by” date.

There’s really no comparison: wrinkly, ugly, yellow, A3 laminated sign (left) vs fresh and new (right)!

There’s really no comparison: wrinkly, ugly, yellow laminated sign vs fresh and new!

There’s no comparison here, either: boring A3 set of “Library Rules” (left) vs fresh and new A4 laminated sign (right)!

Total cost to library of template renovation: Nil (using school laminator).

Thanks again, Kevin, for the inspiration and guidance, and thanks Louise for a great job on the template, which will probably get quite a workout over future years. Well, maybe not too much of a workout, eh Kevin?