We used to take great pride in our pretty book displays which combined a book theme with associated props, which were sometimes elaborate indeed! Despite using a variety of library stock, nothing was borrowed and the display remained pretty unused. We speculated that perhaps our displays were too pretty and that customers thought they were for show only.  So we decided to remove the props and display the same themed items without the embellishments, just a snazzy looking sign and carefully selected tempting books.  This shift in presentation resulted in about 70% of items being borrowed and before it would have been no more than 20%. We discovered that attractive library books advertise themselves and that we only needed to provide a face-out display to showcase them.

I changed my face-out display this week to a bigger range of returned books and carefully arranged them on the shelves to have maximum impact for each cover. The result? Loans more than doubled. 50% ignored the display before the change, and only 25% ignored it after the change. Before, 7.5% of customers walking past took from it, and after the change, 17.5% of customers took from it. I have more: before the change, 15% of people who noticed the display took something from it. After the change, 23% of people who noticed the display took something from it.