2015 will be our 3rd year participating in International Games Day. This event is for all ages and all types of games and gamers. Monopoly, Steve Jackson, and other game makers have donated games to our library in the past. This has given our library outreach resources that we could not have gotten under our current budget constraints. Also, we have adults and teens who can use the games in-house during regular business hours. This is passive programming and patrons love it.
In 2014, our second year to participate, many of our patrons begged for more than once per year game days/nights. This evolved into a once per month game night, and we put board game money into our programming budget to buy a new game or add-ons once per month.
2013 was our first year to participate, and it opened up our programming to include all ages. In the past children’s, teen’s and adult programming were all separated. International Games Day changed the way we looked at programming.
This has spread throughout our community, and we never have less than 10 participants show up. We moved away from video, to board games, and it is a lot of fun. We get good feedback. Thank you IGD!
Lori Latimer is the Assistant Genealogist at the Pope County Library in Russellville, Arkansas