Until the end of February, students can take themselves on a blind date with a book of their choosing.

The Eberly Library, in collaboration with the book club on campus curated a display not only for Valentine’s Day, but the month of February. Previously the library staff and book club teamed up for their banned books display, this past fall semester. 

President of the book club, Gracie Hazelton aided in the creation of both displays. 

“We helped in the fall semester with the banned books display,” Hazelton said.

Librarian Jill Peth shared that she updates the displays every month, but there is usually more than one at a time.  The idea for this display came from her co-workers and a little inspiration from Pinterest as well.

“I had seen the display on Pinterest and other libraries doing it, and my coworkers thought it would be so cute to do,” Peth said.

The touch that students and more specifically the book club brought to the display was unique to Peth.

“I love when the book club and students help out with displays, because they had such a different touch and look that I wouldn’t come up with, and it’s very creative,” Peth said.

Student workers in the library and book club members donated some of their time to wrap the books, choose the little description, and decorate the wrapping.

“We picked out the books that we thought would pique people’s interest, and then we started wrapping them and writing the little description on them,” Hazelton said.

According to Peth the library has 67,357 items in their physical collection. However, according to librarytechnology.org, a website that collects data from library’s catalogues and websites, the library only circulates 1,263 of those items per year. Peth explained that part of the reasoning for her displays is to bring attention to the catalogues the library offers.

“I think it’s really important for a library to do displays,” Peth said. “It highlights your collections so much. Books that may be hidden upstairs that a person would never see, but if it’s highlighted on a theme display, I think it just really brings out our collection.”

Aside from highlighting the collections that the library offers, the displays are also intended to encourage students to be more interested in reading.

“It’s more of trying to get people interested in reading or trying to find their books that they would like to read or aren’t sure of,” Hazelton said. “Trying to get them more involved in reading when they might necessarily not want to or aren’t interested in it.”

Hazelton further expanded on the importance of reading. “I don’t think people realize how much reading is an escape that they could have without leaving anywhere,” Hazelton said. “It doesn’t cost money to go anywhere in your mind.”

The display offers a variety of book genres for readers and reading levels. The wrapped covers of the books represent each book’s genre. Genre examples included are, mystery, historical fiction and Christian fiction. Book highlights include great romance or beautiful writing.

“I think it’s just eye catching. I think it’s intriguing to read the little description about it and you wonder, oh what book am I going to get kind of thing,” Peth said.

Until the end of February, students are encouraged not only to check out the display but check out a book of their choosing, if interested.