‘Lots of oohs and aahs’: More than 20 animatronic dinosaurs take over Gail Borden Library in Elgin

It’s a Jurassic (and Triassic and Cretaceous) world at the Gail Borden Library in Elgin as it prepares to open the new Dinosaur Explorer exhibit this weekend.

More than 20 animatronic dinosaurs in six displays occupy areas on both floors of the library while interactive opportunities allow guests to create their own animated dinosaur and see themselves with a dinosaur head on a large screen.

The exhibit opens Saturday at the library, 270 N. Grove Ave., and runs through Jan. 4.

Natalie Kiburg, division chief of public relations and development at the library, said even though work is still ongoing, the exhibit has already made an impression on visitors.

“There have been a lot of very excited children,” she said. “Lots of oohs and aahs and faces lighting up and jaws dropping.”

The traveling exhibition explores the “wildest, wackiest, and most wondrous dinosaurs” and examines human physiology through the lens of the long-extinct creatures.

Just like a scientist, guests will be empowered to hypothesize about prehistoric life by piecing together archaeological and biological clues.

It’s the library’s first time working with Imagine, a company that creates exhibitions and attractions for museums, studios and leisure destinations. Imagine collaborated with Dr. Gregory Erickson, one of only 150 full-time professional dinosaur paleontologists in the world, to create the exhibit.

Kiburg said it’s the sixth stop for the exhibit and its first in Illinois.

While kids were amazed and even roaring as they ran from dinosaur to dinosaur Thursday, Kiburg said they’re not the only ones having fun with the displays.

“Plenty of adults have been equally excited,” she said. “It lets them be kids again, too.”

Kiburg said the library will host programs related to the dinosaurs during the duration of the exhibition.

For more information, visit gailborden.info/dino2025.