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Gaming @ your library Day – One Game, One Time, Many Players

April 18, 2008

April 13-19 2008 is National Library Week, and Friday April 18th is “gaming @ your library day”.

As one part of that day, the Games and Gaming Members Initiative Group (MIG) and the ALA are encouraging people across the country to play the same board game at the same time: "Ticket to Ride", at 7PM Eastern/6PM Central/5PM Mountain/4PM Pacific. Designed by Alan R. Moon, and published by Days of Wonder, "Ticket to Ride" is an excellent example of the new generation of board games.

The goals of this event are to:

• Raise awareness about the use of games as a library program
• Expose people to a new type of board game
• Establish connections between local board game groups and the library

To Libraries:

Seek out your local board game groups for assistance. Members of that group probably already have Ticket to Ride, but if you need to order a copy, the publisher, Days of Wonder, is discounting the game to libraries.

One of the best ways to locate a local board game group is through the site BoardGameGeek.com, the largest community site for board gamers. The list of groups can be found at www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Game_Clubs. We encourage you to contact your local game group and invite interested members to the library to help host the April 18th board game event. Assistance from board gamers will help you run multiple Ticket to Ride games at the appropriate time. Please document the event with pictures and collect contact information from participants so you can let them know about future events. You can learn how to play Ticket to Ride at www.boardgameswithscott.com/?p=19.

Librarians with questions should contact Jenny Levine at jlevine@ala.org. More information is available at gaming.ala.org/resources/.

To Board Game Groups:

Go to your local library with this information and find out if they’re participating in gaming @ your library on Friday, April 18th. If the library staff isn’t aware of game day, offer to host a board game event on April. The goal is to have many copies of Ticket to Ride played at the same time and to have some documentation of the event. Your participation in this one-day activity can lead to future board game events at the library as well.

Board Game groups with questions should contact Scott Nicholson at scott@scottnicholson.com.

After the event, please visit gaming.ala.org/resources/ to report on your success and to find instructions for sharing your pictures with the Flickr group!