About
People often think that creativity and libraries don’t go together. Libraries have the image to be static and librarians to be too analytical to be creative, but I am one of the rare librarians who is analytical and creative at the same time.
When I came to New Zealand in 2006 I had resigned a fantastic job in a public library (160 thousand media) in The Netherlands, where I worked for 18 years – the last five years as part of the Art, Culture & Education Team. My three colleagues and I were responsible for all the activities involving art, culture and education; actually all activities outside the regular library work. We were responsible for the image of the library, managed art exhibitions, established cultural and educational interactions with schools and made large displays for special occasions such as Christmas, Reading days and Children Book Week. A four metre high Roald Dahl character with a huge paper maché head for a communal library/theatre event was one of the highlights. I learnt to use a jigsaw and a glue pistol as easily as scissors and staple gun to create wall hangings, exhibition backgrounds and displays of any kind.
But the grass often seems greener on the other side of the ditch and that was certainly true for me.
Being at a stage of life that doing something different became urgent I packed
my bags and went to New Zealand for a sabbatical but stayed after the year to join my kiwi partner and build up a life here. I have never regretted my decision for a single moment.
After travelling around New Zealand and doing lots of house sitting in the Bay of I
slands, where we took care of not only the houses but also the dogs, cats, pigs, ducks, chickens and the orchards and vegetable gardens, we seemed to be destined for a nomadic life. After riding on the lawn mower for hours to keep the 10 or 5 acre sections tidy we often watched the pukekos with their chicks by the little stream at the bottom of the orchard where the oranges and lemons waited to be picked or we fed the pigs with the fallen grapefruit from the orchard. We enjoyed every moment.
But life caught up with us and it was time to settle down in Auckland. Again I got a great job at the start of 2008, this time in the school library of of a private College in Auckland. Lots of variety, lots of creative input and every couple of weeks new displays where I can use all my creativity and experience, though in a totally different way.
The challenge in life is to do what you love most and for me that is working in a library and making sure the library environment is modern and up-to-date.
This website is for all who want to make creative displays. I’m getting better every day by working on them and I hope that my experience will help you to have more creative ideas to make the displays you’re working on fantastic, challenging and inviting to look at.
It would be great to create a kind of display-bank where libraries in and around Auckland City can sign up for an exchange of their displays. A courier or a drop off could save a lot of work and time while others enjoy your creations. Maybe we can set up a forum to give each other support when we're having a black-out and no ideas at all. A few suggestions from colleagues are often enough to get your imagination going.
I hope you send me lots of photos (anita@adventurenz.co.nz) and a short description of your displays so that I can upload them to this site. Together we can create a kind of database for the benefit of us all; we live in a visual world and what is greater joy than being welcomed in a modern, creative library where the mind is challenged and the eye is invited to explore?
Together we can make it work!!!
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