An eight-step method for raising awareness at your public library.

Since May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, it’s a good time to be thinking about how you can spread the word in your own community. A very simple idea is to use a display case at your local library. Keep in mind that you aren’t limited to the month of May. An educational display about Lyme disease would be appropriate any time of year.

My daughter and I decided to do such a display this year, and it was easy and low-cost. I’ll walk you through what we did, and perhaps you can adapt it for your own use.

One: we signed up for the use of a table top display case at our local branch library. In our case, it was a 2’ x 4’ table, topped by a glass covering about six inches deep. This was easier than a vertical display case, since we could just lay things down flat, and didn’t have to worry about propping things up or attaching them.

Two: We gathered Lyme-related materials we already had on-hand, including one lime green CALDA T-shirt with the words “Tick Suck… and Give you Lyme Disease” emblazoned across the front; a green bumper sticker which reads: “Lyme disease…a national crisis”; a copy of Cure Unknown by Pamela Weintraub; a copy of The Lyme Disease Solution, by Dr. Kenneth Singleton; several issues of the Lyme Times, and some CALDA brochures.

Three: We downloaded a flyer from the CALDA website, showing a map of California with different Lyme-risk areas for the state in varying shades of blue. (Guess what—it’s the whole darn state!)

Four: Next, we followed the link from the CALDA website to the California Department of Public Health’s website, which has several excellent posters for downloading. We chose “Ticks and Protection Against Tick Bites” and “Don’t Let the Ticks Bite.” Both are colorful and attractive posters with good visuals and information.

Five: We downloaded a movie poster from the Under Our Skin website.

Six: We took our flash drive to Kinko’s, and had the posters printed on letter-size paper, for a grand total of less than five bucks.

Seven: On our home printer, in black and white, we made a few titles and captions such as “For more information, see www.lymedisease.org.” And we printed out details of our upcoming Under Our Skin screening.

Eight: We took all our goodies to the library, unlocked the case, and arranged the items in a way that seemed most eye-catching and appealing.

Bingo. That was it. It would be simple for anyone to replicate this. If you lack some of the items we had on hand, there are additional materials that be downloaded from the CALDA website.  

You’ve got your assignment. Now, hop to it!

Contact the author at dleland@lymedisease.org