Everyone Wants to Play with Dry Erase Boards

A while back, I read a great post over on Letters to a Young Librarian about the effectiveness of doing white board polls in a small library. Immediately, I was intrigued. We have a small school as well, with a one-room library. Everyone passes through the same area here, and it was a prime location for doing just this very thing. So, just a few days after reading the post, I began my own white board polls. I've tried to do a variety of topics -- some serious, some fun, some a little of both.

Our PC vs. Mac poll got a fair amount of interest. We had recently had a request to add more Apple computers to our lab, because the two currently available are only available to our Visual Communications students to use. I was a bit surprised by the poll, as I thought more people would prefer Macs than actually did. (And yes, I'm aware that the symbol for the PC I put up is actually a symbol for Windows, but it was the closest I could get to the idea of a "PC" in pictorial representation.)

I'm also hoping to put together a "Quick Print" station where students can just walk up and quickly and easily print on a computer that is already logged in. Our other computers are notorious for taking up to 5 minutes to log in, and students are notorious for wanting to come print two minutes before an assignment is due in class. This poll was designed to help me understand what we would need to have available on that computer. 

 And, our most active poll so far has been a fun one - Star Wars vs. Star Trek. As you can see, the debate got heated.

This has definitely been a great addition to the library's everyday operations. I'm able to post on social media when we have a new poll up, and some students and faculty weigh in through that platform. I also find that students just love to have an excuse to play with dry erase markers. Plus, it's been a treat for me to dream up ideas for each poll!