What does it take to make a library great? Obviously you’ll need wonderful staff (not just librarians, but library assistants, custodians, clerks, security guards, fundraisers, IT people, graphic designers, awesome volunteers…) and a variety of resources (we’ve got books, ebooks, DVDs, Blu-Rays, magazines, databases, government documents, games, puppets, sewing machines, synthesizers, newspapers, hotspots, CDs…) and it helps if you have a totally cool building (I’m rather partial to the Main Library, but I guess the branches are okay, too).

But you also need stickers. Lots and lots of stickers. We put stickers on everything. We love stickers. For example, check out this DVD.

There are seven stickers here – five outside and two inside. Each one helps us figure out where this DVD belongs. For example, this copy of 49 Pulses should be shelved in the Main Library’s nonfiction LGBTQ DVD section. The sticker inside the case provides the publisher’s information and the sticker on the disc itself helps it get back to us if it gets separated from its case.

Here are a few more examples of the stickery goodness that abounds in the Music, Film & Audio Department!

If we didn’t have these genre stickers, the Anime would get mixed up with the Horror, and no one wants that.

Good luck shelving your fiction without a set of alphabet stickers.

We use this trusty old tractor feed printer to make replacement spine labels for books, DVDs, and CDs. It uses a ribbon instead of an ink cartridge, and it makes that sound. You know the one: Bdzpp-bdzpp-bdzpp.

African American genre stickers hard at work.

See? We’ve managed to keep the Anime and Horror separated.

These info-packed spine labels ensure that we don’t mix up the PS3 and PS4 games, because that would be terrible.

As I often say, “It’s not a library if you can’t find anything.” And stickers help us do just that. Thanks, stickers!

– Amy

Amy E. is a Senior Librarian in the Music, Film & Audio Department. She has a fondness for obscure Japanese mystery novels and true tales of the Gilded Age, though neither one really relates to film or audio.