In honor of Valentine’s Day, the librarians on SE Campus created a unique display, and students have been loving it.
The display, titled “BookDash,” consisted of shelves holding brown paper bags with mini fake receipts on them that had descriptions of a mystery book inside. One read Korean cafe, fandom and fake dating while another had the words humorous, parent/adviser and relationships displaying a variety of options.
Library instructional assistant Ana Ortiz pitched the idea of a more universal Valentine’s Day display that could appeal to a variety of students. In the past, she said the library did “blind dates with a book,” so she said making the bags look like DoorDash bags felt like a way to do just that.
“I collaborated with Anna Hithersay, who is a librarian here,” Ortiz said. “[We] kind of highlight books that were about love and sort of love as an emotion, relationship and not just romance for February.”
The “blind date with a book” concept became popular online with the rise of BookTok. Bookstores across the country ranging from small local ones to chains like Barnes & Noble have created their own displays with books wrapped in paper with a vague description of its contents. Students have recognized the idea and think it’s cool how the library is doing something similar.
“I saw that on TikTok that you have to buy a blind date book,” SE student Dayra Trejo said. “That’s interesting because I saw you just have to show your ID and they give you the bag.”
The library staff was surprised by the students’ reaction, Ortiz said. As soon as she was putting the book bags on display, students were coming up to her curious about the books. Hithersay said she had to pull more books as the students were cleaning the shelves.
“The student reaction has been phenomenal,” Hithersay said. “Immediately, people started coming and looking at it and asking questions and within that first day over half of the books were already checked out, so we’ve been pulling more books. We are really excited about the response.”
While the display is only being filled through February, the staff plans to do something similar but with the video collection the SE library offers.
““We are actually talking about doing a different version in the future around our videos, streaming movies and DVD collection,” Hithersay said. “We are always looking for new ideas to have a fun display that’s engaging but also make sure that we are highlighting the way that our collection can help students with their work.”
