Hello everyone! I’m proud to announce that we seem to have hit a (completely arbitrary, but nonetheless exciting) milestone: we now have over 1000 registrations, in 25 countries/territories! Those celebrating on the day will be joined by libraries in at least the following places: Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, China, Croatia, Cuba, Denmark, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Marianas Islands, Nigeria, Norway, Philippines, Russian Federation, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America. And given last year’s remarkable last-minute rush, which saw us adding numerous libraries in countries we didn’t think would be joining us in the final update, I’m hopeful we might even crack 40 territories this year.
To all our participants, especially the libraries outside the US, Scandinavia, and Australia (i.e. the places where we have some official support):
Welcome, and congratulations! You are pioneers for your nation in two distinct, but not unrelated, fields: international community-building, and the inevitable growth of libraries’ intelligent curation of play in culture. Take a moment to recognise your own achievement – it is bigger than filling out a registration form and having some fun on a Saturday would suggest!
But since libraries live to share, let me note that it’s not too late to invite more of your peers in your home country – or your regional networks. If you haven’t already, have a look at the template text on the Library Press Kit page [inactive]. Feel free to adapt, translate and circulate it within your own library communities as you see fit!
(I confess I have an ulterior, but still altruistic, motive for asking – as the person running the Global Gossip Game, I am a little worried that we have very crowded groups of time zones at the start (in Australia), the middle (UK and Scandinavia) and the end (the Americas), but relatively few around the UTC+8 to UTC+2 and UTC+0 to UTC-4 bands. So my suggestion applies doubly to libraries in Asia, Africa, and Europe – and I’d love to have even more libraries joining us from South and Central America as well!)
Thanks all, and best wishes for your preparations!