As you may know by now, there is a coloring craze going on. And we want libraries and their patrons to join in the fun!

Inspired in part by a recent twitter exchange with the Biodiversity Heritage Library, we are starting a week-long special collections coloring fest on social media, using the hashtag #ColorOurCollections. There is so much great coloring content in special collections, especially when looking at early illustrated books meant to be colored by hand.

Collections Care Assistant Emily Moyer and Archivist Rebecca Pou #ColorOurCollections.

If you work in a library or special collection, share images from your collections and invite followers to share their colored copies from February 1-5. You could use images already online in your digital collections, or you could even create easily printable coloring sheets or a coloring book, which we did a few years ago.

If you are a coloring fan, grab those colored pencils and felt-tip markers and #ColorOurCollections, then share your results using the hashtag.

Camel from Conrad Gesner’s Historia Animalium, Liber I, 1551.