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We had some fun for April Fool’s.

It started when our newest student assistant said to us (whilst trying to mask the fear in his voice) “So what happens around here for April Fool’s?” Turns out that he can be a little jumpy when it comes to practical jokes and he was trying to determine how much he needed to be on his guard for the coming up first day of April.

“We don’t do anything,” we assured him (though the other student assistant did successfully rickroll me the previous April.). But his question acted as seed + soil + sun + water and within five minutes we were talking about how fun it would be to do something on the library’s web site. Fool the students: we’re getting rid of all our books and going Kindle’s only! Yeah! And no coffee, either! In only a couple of minutes we had six good ideas. We laughed amongst ourselves. And then… lightbulb.

We got approval. Our director. Our associate dean. Our dean. They were totally game. And we were excited, so in a handful of hours our trick was hatched and we just had to wait for the clock to strike 12:01 on April 1st.

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We wanted it to be more than a trick, though. We wanted it to be, uh, you know, a teaching moment.

Letting kids know the real score

So that’s what we did. Each April Fool’s story let the patron in on the joke: April Fool’s… and then the real information…

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We gave them the real story and then added links so people could get even more information.

This was a really fun project that we hope will add levity to the library and let our patrons know we don’t take ourselves seriously — yet we take our patrons very seriously. We hope it makes the library a more approachable place; one where our patrons feel like it’s more than just Cal Poly’s library: it’s their library.

See it in action

Flickr Slideshow of Screenshots