Ah. May. Springtime. Students – both high school and college alike – are looking forward to an ever approaching end to the spring semester and the school year. Seniors, hopefully already gotten started thinking about their futures months beforehand, are now anticipating a new step in their lives, whether it’s higher education or starting the job search. I think this time of the year also instigates thoughts of finding love, starting families, and searching for homes. This was the inspiration for the display I finished setting up this morning: “The Game of Life.”

Using the imagery from the Hasbro board game, I made a sign using black and white foam core and printed the L-I-F-E using our color printer. The display features nonfiction titles on searching and applying for college, job hunting and resume and cover letter writing, buying or renting properties, and raising children. A couple months ago one of my coworkers set up a hobbies display and used little icons to represent different ones like woodworking, music, knitting, etc. Stealing – or as we librarians like to say – borrowing her idea, I used Microsoft Publisher to create “LIFE” cards to represent each of the subject areas and mounted them on black foam core.

If I had the resources and time to do so, I would have tried crafting either a spinner or a car with a couple of the blue and pink little people in it. However, with the limited space on the shelf, that may have just crowded it even more than it already is. If I did have more room, I probably would have added subjects on relationships and marriage, purchasing insurance, winning the lottery and retirement! I had a ton of fun creating this display and seeing it come to life (pun intended xD), and I look forward to seeing how well it goes over with patrons!