When people walk by the HHS library the first thing that draws their attention is the large, glass book display that showcases a theme that corresponds with the time of the year. Librarian Bradley Walton is in charge of setting up all the displays that occur throughout the year.

Walton comes up with the themes, but he doesn’t always come up with new themes.

“I tend to recycle displays from year to year,” said Walton.

The display themes are usually on a cycle that Walton sticks to throughout the years and the library start the year out with displaying new staff members and their favorite books.

“We put pictures of the new staff members on the display case, which for me is incredibly helpful in learning their names and I think some of the faculty and probably even some of the students think so too. I usually like to leave the new staff display up for as long as I can, so I can learn people’s names,” Walton said.

After that Walton does a Veteran’s Day theme for November instead of the typical Thanksgiving theme.

“I think that Thanksgiving gets all of the attention, disproportionately so, so why not do Veteran’s Day? Plus, my dad served in Korea. I feel like that it’s a good, important thing to celebrate,” Walton said

In December the theme is usually Holiday and Winter reading, but Walton opted for “Chill Out and Read”.

“It turned out to be prophetic for the month of January. Also, with this theme, I don’t have to clean out the December display for a while,” Walton said.

For February the library switches between a romantic novel display and “Books people love to hate”.

“We basically try to dress it up and make it as lovely as possible and fill the case with quotes of people saying nasty things about the books,” Walton said.

The March display last year was “Green Reading” in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

“I searched the library for any books that had green covers and I was amazed at how well that turned out. It was the most visually unified book display that we ever had. I was really happy with it. Maybe for Valentine’s Day next year, we’ll do books with pink covers,” Walton said.

Walton usually chooses the books that end up in the display case for each month, with an exception of the “Books people love to hate”. Walton has also been the one in charge of filling up the display case ever since he began working at HHS.

“For a while, we had a librarian who was here for a few years and was really into doing the display case. So, I gladly let her do it and I took it back over when she left,” Walton said.

The display case takes 80 books to fill it. The process of filling the book display is an arduous process that involves taking the books off the book shelves and they have to be placed at the end of the display cycle. The display case used to be changed monthly, but now it doesn’t change as frequently. It takes Walton 15 hours total per year to set up the case.

“I usually make the display during school, but if it coincides with a snow day or a work day than it is a really good project to work on. I put in maybe 15 hours per year,” said Walton.

Students who want to check out books from the display case simply have to ask a librarian to get the books from the case.

Photos by Luke Gibson.