I work at a local health sciences college library. It occupies a large space (half of the second floor) yet has a smaller physical collection than average. Most students consider the shelves and my desk to be “the library.” The rest of the floor is filled with lots of study space, which students and faculty frequent. It does the students a disservice to think this way. A library is more than the shelves and my desk: it is a study lounge, a meeting place, a reading nook, a tech corner and a quiet space! I’ve wanted to help change the way students see the library for some time. This is what led my library to create the “Health Heroes from History” project.
It started when students began leaving messages and small pictures on the whiteboards, which brought a smile to my face as I walked around and cleaned the study areas at the end of my shift. The messages were motivational, often intended to help uplift students at particularly challenging points in the semester. After some thought, we decided to add to these messages as well! With small designs that could attach to different sections of the whiteboards around each desk, we could help inspire students to stay motivated when tackling challenging coursework. We chose “Health Heroes from History” as an inspiring, informative, relevant, casual, and exploratory topic for the design. Now, students can find different “health heroes” on different boards across the second floor, and we rotate them and add new heroes every few weeks.
Each health hero has a large picture of the person, their name, and a brief bio. My favorite part is that these small designs combine the sciences and the humanities in a way that encourages students to connect what they learn at school with their life goals. It feels like these health heroes are giving them advice and guidance.
The process of making these “Health Heroes from History” boards is as follows:
– Fun, colorful backgrounds add to the cheer of the space and keep students engaged.
– Each picture shows that person as a regular human, like the rest of us. This helps students become more familiar with them as regular people. I try to find pictures where it feels like the health hero is looking at you as you read.
– Choosing a health hero is easy, as Wikipedia has great lists of people. I check the daily “on this day” page and it lists people who were born/who died on that day. It makes for a very eclectic list. I find health heroes I hadn’t heard of before, and that’s the goal!
– The bullet point bios used to be paragraphs, but were condensed over time to be more readable. We try to include fun things on these bios, like “played varsity basketball in college” and “also enjoyed writing poetry,” etc.
– Finally, the name card. When the health hero looks like they’re saying their name, it feels like a conversation.
We are continually improving these “Health Heroes from History” boards so that they’re engaging, friendly and informative. Our goal is to inspire students to think about what is possible in the health sciences. I’ve also posted many of our heroes on our Instagram page, so the content is usable on multiple different platforms. To other library workers: inspire away!
Sadie Davenport is ALASC’s co-chair/webmaster. You can find her on instagram @sadiearabia or follow her library’s instagram @cnulibrary.