Visitors will be greeted with an eerie rhyme:
“Welcome wizards to this place of learning, where grand ideas are bound to be brewing. An epic journey awaits you ahead if you prove yourself well read. With stories yet to be woven and chapters yet to be written, may this fortune bring you news to share of a future bound to delight…if you dare!”
This project has required the talents and creativity of staff from all departments, according to Murray.
“So many staff had a role to play in the creation of the fortune teller. As the floating head herself, Erin Francoeur (Executive Director) spent hours watching YouTube tutorials on how to paint her entire face blue. All library staff were invited to help write the 100+ fortunes that the kiosk will randomly generate when visitors push a button. Scottie Jackson (Marketing Specialist) created the whimsical design for the fortune slip. David Reyes (Innovation Lab Supervisor) recorded Erin’s greeting using the library’s camera, teleprompter, lapel microphone, and green screen setup. He then edited the recording using a masking effect in Adobe Premiere Pro to isolate her head to make it looked like it was floating. And he adjusted the vocal recording pitch to give it a spookier feel.
Steve Owley (Operations Director) learned how to replicate the Peppers Ghost effect using a dummy head covered in white molded clay, an outdated projector, a micro computer (called a Raspberry Pi), and a cheap mirror. He also figured out how to feed fortunes through the kiosk using a second Raspberry Pi and a receipt printer. He even used a soldering iron to convert a flickering candle from battery-operated to USB powered. Stacey Sparling (Building Manager) and his team built the cabinet that houses the structure and Matt Glaviano (Librarian) created the decorations for the cabinet. It’s just been this huge library-wide effort to make it happen."
“I know we’re just copying something that’s already been done, but Disney spent multiple millions of dollars to bring these things to life and now we’re some librarians in a small town being able to accomplish the same exact thing. It’s pretty impressive,” says Francoeur. “What I love about Wizards & Wands is that it’s evolving into this other thing and seeing staff getting excited and have these amazing ideas and it’s fun. But it’s still relevant to the work.”
Reyes adds, “I’ve done a decent amount of video editing type stuff. All those skills though are learnable. This project ends up sort of detailing the amount of expertise that we have across the staff. It builds upon the basics of the day-to-day but we’ve got folks with all kinds of backgrounds and we’re able to utilize all of that to do these kinds of things.”
“And the best thing is that somebody could replicate this at the library all on their own,” says Murray. “The tools are already here. We’re just helping to demystify the process and get people excited about trying new things.”
