Good ideas for school libraries: 9. Cinema posters

One of the challenges you may face in your library is scale.  Our library is on three levels - you walk in on the middle level, go up to fiction and down to nonfiction.  There are two large voids, and high walls of cream paint and an undistinguished brick (I'm being polite).  On some of these walls, an ordinary poster looks tiddly and slightly daft, surrounded by cream paint and/or undistinguished brick (I know, I shouldn't go on about it).

Cinemas have big posters.  Keep your ears and eyes open, and you may be able to acquire (legally) some of these.

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This is part of our fiction section.  The Incredibles posters end up, high on the wall as they are, almost at eye-level, and tie in colourwise with the banner beside them (a bought banner that one - more about it and its friends later) (they also relate to the yellow struts, and orange light fittings, how DID you guess this library was built in the 1970s?).  A lot of film posters can have a tie-in with various books; these ones I just got because of the kapow! colours and the animation.  They're not too little-kid for a high school library, either.  One thing you find in our library is that there is always something to look at, to catch the eye, and I like offering students that sort of engaging environment.

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Many of these large large posters are also pretty durable, printed on vinyl, so they have the added attraction of not being silverfish luncheon fare, but instead lasting well and looking good while they're about it.  These weren't the most well-known characters from The Incredibles, but I'd rather have these than nothing.

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We do have other cinema posters - more of them later, too.

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What you need: to be paying attention for when cinemas or video shops are selling off their posters and advertising material.  Ask, if they have something you covet, and explain that you're a teacher librarian and want it for your library (some cinemas are leery of people who acquire stuff they then sell off on eBay).  They may say no, but they might not.  These posters cost under $20 each, from memory - excellent value, when an ordinary little poster can easily run over $20.

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