On Three Years Of Community Whiteboards, a guest post by Natalie Leif

Soon after I started my last job at my local library, one of my duties became updating the whiteboard every month. This wasn’t part of the job description, or even necessary–I was simply the person at the branch who most loved to draw, and the whiteboard acted as containment so I’d stop doodling on every spare notepad and scrap paper around.
Eventually, when other doodles and side-notes started showing up, I began adding a monthly discussion question to the board for others. Some of these were huge hits, generating dozens of responses and a beautiful collage of patron and staff art, as well as long in-person discussions.
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Others… not so much.
Just like art, coming up with the ideal discussion questions involved a lot of trial and error. As I get ready for my next career phase with the upcoming launch of my YA book, TAKE ALL OF US, I’ve decided to take a look back at what ended up being the five worst and five best library whiteboards overall.
WORST
#5:

The question “What’s your favorite warm treat?” just isn’t a good one if you want a lot of varied responses. Once “hot chocolate” and “tea” were on the board, that covered most everyone’s picks. November is also one of our “lull” months, with few patrons and fewer exciting events going on.
That said, this one did have an unexpected benefit: after several days of rainy weather, it stirred up a discussion on giving entry-level staff the access codes for the back of the building. This allowed them to come in from the rain quicker, and in general go in and out more freely, which was cause to celebrate for every part-timer on staff.
#4:

This was my first holiday-themed doodle, and where I made my first big mistake: a lot of patrons and staff don’t celebrate Halloween. A lot less of them had extensive costume plans. By making a Halloween-themed question, I had excluded several people from participating and created a board with a much lower response quantity than the month before. While I liked the few doodles that did result from it, I ended up scrapping it in favor of questions that are more inclusive in the future.
#3:

This board suffered from being one of the first up after lockdown, when our patronage was low and staff was still getting re-adjusted to having the collection open. Very few people were interested in going around to stores at all, let alone comic book stores–and with August 14th being a weekday, most were too busy working. I was so distracted with COVID that I didn’t even put up a discussion question, leading to disorganized replies and mixed enthusiasm.
However, we’d eventually revisit the subject in May 2024 with our own Free Comic Book Day event. Librarians helped patrons make buttons, pose for cosplay photos, and take home free graphic novels, which ended up being much more successful than this 2021 attempt.
#2:

Once again, this is a board that suffered from our sharp decline in patrons and available staff post-lockdown. Many of our volunteers retired early or were shifted to other branches during 2020, and those who remained still seemed wary to interact with germy community whiteboards. Patrons also seemed unclear as to what counted as a ‘genre’ for the question.
After this one, I ended up imposing a rule: I had to be the first to put up a reply, and if I couldn’t think of one in ten seconds, I had to think up a better discussion question.
#1:

Oof, this one was bad. Only three replies made it our worst-received prompt, even including ones made shortly after lockdown. Turns out that ‘fun’ and ‘New Year’s resolution’ were oxymorons to many patrons, whose resolutions were more about self-improvement and difficult goals than whimsy.
BEST:
#5:

This one was just plain fun! Polls often ended up being successful, especially ones that were silly and low stakes. And with a heat wave happening that month, our library found itself with an explosion of non-human patrons lurking around the parking lot and windows–especially bees and ladybugs! Everyone had strong opinions on their favorites and least favorites, and it seemed like the poll encouraged more appreciation and less ick towards our local creepy-crawlies.
#4:

This one surprised me, mostly because I wasn’t expecting so many responses! As someone who went to school in small town Wisconsin, most of my peers were born local and stayed local. Going to Seattle after graduation was the most dramatic change of my life, so realizing how many others had gone even further than that really put the culture shift into perspective. This one also prompted a lot of interesting discussions on where people have been and where they’d like to go next, which I’d like to think helped the library (and me!) become a little more worldly.
#3:

That’s a lotta art! This one was just fun to watch grow. I started it off with a single doodle, but with our massive Junior Fiction section, it’s not surprising that kids and staff all had iconic characters they were eager to show. By the end of the month, any staff member with an artistic bone in their body found themselves taking on art requests from eager readers.
#2:

This one gets points for getting the most responses out of any prompt, to the point where they ended up crammed on the board wherever there was space. Some people might also notice that the handwriting is different for it–because I was out on vacation! Seeing other staff members keep up the unofficial whiteboard tradition, and seeing pics of new responses, really made my holiday. And speaking of leaving…
#1:

Here’s one of the last whiteboards I made. As much as we handle and order books, it ended up pretty hard to go through all the work to make my own and send it out into the world. In a way, it feels like closure to the library job–I spent years there, learning about types of books and categories and patron requests, and now I get to leave behind one of my own for the shelves. I can only hope that TAKE ALL OF US makes patrons smile as much as the whiteboard doodles did, flops and successes and all.
For now, that’s the list! What were the best and worst in your eyes? And what would you put up as a question? That’s this month’s prompt, have fun!
Meet the author

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What is there to say about the mysterious Natalie Leif? A Wisconsin graduate with a BA in Technical Writing, Leif is an author, illustrator, and library page. By day, they shelve books and talk to patrons. By night, they write stories about undead kids and draw illustrations about magic. Their writing and illustration work has appeared in several anthologies, including the Tankadere series by Crab Tank and Then It Was Dark by Sarah Benkin, as well as on the site Reflex Fiction. They’ve won the Seattle EPIC Writers contest for fiction and poetry and drew the nonprofit graphic novel Crossing the Road for the city of Lynnwood, WA.
About Take All of Us
A YA unbury-your-gays horror in which an undead teen must find the boy he loves before he loses his mind and body.
Five years ago, a parasite poisoned the water of Ian’s West Virginia hometown, turning dozens of locals into dark-eyed, oil-dripping shells of their former selves. With chronic migraines and seizures limiting his physical abilities, Ian relies on his best friend and secret love Eric to mercy-kill any infected people they come across.
Until a new health report about the contamination triggers a mandatory government evacuation, and Ian cracks his head in the rush. Used to hospitals and health scares, Ian always thought he’d die young… but he wasn’t planning on coming back. Much less face the slow, painful realization that Eric left him behind to die.
Desperate to find Eric and the truth before the parasite takes over him, Ian along with two others left behind—his old childhood rival Monica and the jaded prepper Angel—journey to track down Eric. What they don’t know is that Eric is also looking for Ian, and he’s determined to mercy-kill him.
ISBN-13: 9780823456611
Publisher: Holiday House
Publication date: 06/04/2024
Age Range: 14 – 17 Years
Filed under: Guest Post

About Amanda MacGregor
Amanda MacGregor works in an elementary library, loves dogs, and can be found on Twitter @CiteSomething.
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