This is Tongass Voices, a series from KTOO sharing weekly perspectives from the homelands of the Áak’w Kwáan and beyond.
You may have noticed the eye-catching display of bits and bobbins: stuffed animals, beads and soccer balls at the Douglas Library. And that’s what it’s for — to be looked at. There is a list at the bottom that says things like “find 10 ladybugs.”
Librarian Melinda Sandkam created the I Spy-inspired collection nearly two years ago, and has been adding to it ever since.
Listen:
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Melinda Sandkam: People are surprised by it. They come upon it when they’re waiting for something. You know, we can’t have food in the library, but you can enjoy snacks in the lobby. So often, people will be munching on a little snack out here, and they engage with the I Spy display, people will be coming into our meeting room to use it, and so they they discover the I Spy display, or the Friends of the Library books that are available, or the free magazines to pick up.
And so it’s just kind of in passing through. But I really do find that people get interested in finding that either looking for something on the list or they just spy something that they recognize.
I’m Melinda Sandkam, and I’m the outreach librarian with Juneau public libraries. So I was inspired by seeing I Spy displays in libraries and other locations.
When I completed my degree and was exploring neighborhoods in the Pacific Northwest to move, I visited over 150 libraries in Washington and Oregon, and so I saw I Spy. Sometimes they were in a smaller setting, like an aquarium or big glass case. So it’s just a great engagement in the library.
But I also saw the display at the Alaska State Museum, and they have a board where things are attached or glued to and so those were inspirations to filling this case with something to engage the community.
The very first thing I did was put out an ask to all our staff, because we have some really creative librarians. And just, “did they have any miscellaneous things sitting around?” That was where we got our Elvis in the purple sequin suit, from a staff member. And then we just collected things.
Then I started looking in yard sales. And here in Juneau, there’s all the piles of free stuff. And so I always keep an eye out there. I just picked up two pine cones last night in someone’s bucket of free stuff.
But I’m also looking for literary things. So I recently found a Clifford, the Big Red Dog. I found another panda, and I knew I had pandas, so I just keep an eye out for things that will have the literary theme or that will make it two or three or multiple items.
I came from an education background. I was a preschool director most recently, before becoming a librarian, and so you see at that early age how people engage in different ways. Some engage kinesthetically and some engage through literature and some engage with a math background. Some engage very physically, like building things — manipulatives.
So this is definitely an engagement with the mind of looking for small and big that can be with. Like we have a very big Eeyore and a very small Eeyore. Those are some of the most difficult ones to find. Or you’ll say, three Poohs, but the Poohs are all different shapes and sizes, and so that can engage very young ones. There’s a lot of color. There is a lot of characters that they might know.
So it is just that color, shapes, sizes, themes, animals. We have a crocodile, we have frogs, we have ladybugs, dinosaurs and so those are all things that may engage many different people.