Hi everyone! Less than two weeks to go till the big day – and it will be a big one this year! Even before the usual last-week spike in registrations, we are already at over 1200 participating libraries, including (to my considerable pride) over 50 here in Australia! And the list of international locations is growing, too, with over 30 countries and territories already on our books: Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, China, Croatia, Cuba, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greenland, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Nigeria, the Northern Mariana Islands, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Sweden, UK, and USA.
That’s a lot of us all over the planet coming together to enjoy each other’s company as we celebrate games, play, learning, community, and libraries. And it’s something pretty special we’re all making possible for each other. I know our readers are busy and tend to read in a hurry, but it might be a nice idea to send each other messages and well-wishes in the comments… no pressure, but I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing from me, and hearing from each other might be quite a nice change 🙂
To the practicalities!
Donations
All donors have been notified of your donation requests, and they should be on their way. We’ve had confirmation from Steve Jackson, Ravensburger, USAopoly, and Australian sponsor Good Games that they’ve shipped their games; however, lack of confirmation most likely just means they’re too busy to get in touch – it’s a pretty crazy time of year for games vendors! (If you’ve requested donations from other donors and received them, please let us know in the comments below.)
Even more generous than we expected
Due to a glitch in our registration survey, which was supposed to stop offering donations once the quota had been reached, but decided to just ignore those limits, most donors have had to deal with a slight overage. Thanks to all of them for their generosity in taking this in their stride!
Steve Jackson Games were an exception deserving special mention here… there was nothing “slight” about being faced with shipping over 400 games more than they originally planned to ship. But they unflinchingly agreed – for which I reckon they deserve a round of applause over and above the general gratitude.
So whoever sent you gifts for your IGD celebrations, be sure to write to them and express your appreciation for their support of libraries – it’s even greater than we knew! Feel free to drop a note into the comments below too.
Global Gossip Game
I’m in the middle of generating the Global Gossip Game instructions (literally, I’m taking a break from that job to post this), and hope to have it done in the next day or two. PAX Aus was on the weekend, and I was too exhausted at the end of each day to do much.
I have completed the schedule, however, and in most cases, I have managed to get everyone the time they preferred.
In some respects the GGG will be bigger than ever this year too – although we’re sadly not going to make it to Antarctica or Africa this year, we have a record-breaking 80 libraries in 16 jurisdictions joining us, including one of the world’s greats – the British Library!
International Minecraft Hunger Games
The good folks at AADL have been sent a list of everyone who had registered as of the end of October, and will be sending out emails to everyone about their game shortly if they haven’t already; more updates on that as I get them! Their servers will be open for testing this week and competition will be able to begin as of next week.
As is the case each year, this inter-library video game contest is entirely the work and brainchild of AADL – they organise it and offer it to us all entirely at their own initiative. Even if you’re not planning to participate, that’s an exceptionally generous and, well, library-like thing to do – so please do feel free thank them even if you’re not playing in their game!
I think that’s it! I’ll be back in touch as there’s news to share, and of course GGG libraries will be hearing from me soon, but meanwhile, thank you for making this remarkable event possible, and Happy International Games Day to all of you!