It’s December and to patrons of the library that means one thing: Book Flakes. The yearly challenge is put on by librarian Amanda Pata who has students use their library searching skills to find a specific book she selected. Every book is marked with a special snowflake bookmark tucked in the pages and Pata announces the book with an Instagram post. The scavenger hunt has been running for about five years now. Pata tries to pick out a new book every hour so there’s a constant challenge for students.

“I post, or show in the classroom, a different book every hour,” Pata said. “Whoever is the first to find that book on the shelves using their library skills, like finding [it in] the catalog and then translating that to how to find it on the shelves, gets to spin the wheel for a prize.”

While Pata loves to see the smiling faces of winners when they earn their prize, she also uses the book flakes as a way to bring more people to the library space and learn about the resources, such as the online library catalog, available for them. Pata uses this activity to spread books students have never heard of and share genres they may not be used to.  

“Sometimes you might pull a book that you would have never even considered looking at,” Pata said. “[You can] check it out or see an interesting spot that has books that are like ones you [already] like.”