Some NGD resources, courtesy of Jenny Levine
For those of you who are participating in the Pictureka! board game activity to count the most number of people playing the same board game on the same day, Dr. Scott Nicholson has posted a video to help you learn the game and to share tips for using it in libraries. He also makes suggestions for other board games you could provide if you want to extend play beyond Pictureka! Watch the video at http://gamelab.syr.edu/
If you plan to offer videogame play on Saturday and this is your first time getting started with something like this, be sure to listen to the October 2008 episode of our Games in Libraries podcast for lots of tips and advice for hosting videogame play. Listen to or download the audio at http://www.gamesinlibraries. There are some general tips for non-videogame play, too, so this actually has a little something for everyone.
If you plan to participate in one of the national videogame tournaments set for Saturday, you should have received an email yesterday with detailed instructions from Eli Neiburger. If you didn’t get that email or if you haven’t signed up yet and you want to join the Dance Dance Revolution, Rock Band, and/or Super Smash Brothers Brawl tournaments, please contact Eli immediately at neiburgere@aadl.org. There is some basic information available at http://wiki.gtsystem.org/, but he can answer your questions related to these tournaments.
If you’re finalizing some PR to send to your local newspaper or TV station, don’t forget that we have an online toolkit of materials you can send out or adapt for use. Find them at http://tinyurl.com/4zoxat [inactive]. There’s also an FAQ with general information about National Gaming Day at http://tinyurl.com/4tdcp6 (this link will redirect you to ALA’s Games and Gaming Resources site).
If you signed up in October for the free game kits from Wizards of the Coast and you have not yet received them, please contact Tom Ko at tom.ko@wizards.com.
If you are at a public library and you have not yet received your donated copy of Pictureka! from Hasbro, please contact ALA’s Development Office at development@ala.org before November 30 for follow-up. We probably won’t be able to get a copy to you before National Gaming Day (although some games may still be in transit), but you’ll still get your copy of the game as long as you notify us before the end of the day on November 30. Please be sure to provide your full postal address when contacting us about this.
Finally, we’d like to thank our sponsors for the first ever National Gaming Day @ your library, Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. We appreciate their generosity and look forward to working with them again in the future.
The only thing we’re asking of you is that you please fill out our feedback survey after National Gaming Day. Whether your library is just playing one round of Pictureka! or hosting professional-level videogame tournaments, any data you can give us for the survey will help us paint a more complete picture of the day’s events and of gaming in libraries in general. So during your NGD activities, please count how many people play Pictureka! throughout the day and how many people play any other games you offer. When you’re done, just go to http://tinyurl.com/6m65pj to answer the questions and tell us about how things went. The survey will remain open until 7:00 p.m. CST on Tuesday, November 18, and we’ll do a press release with numbers on Wednesday (November 19). Please feel free to email us links to any press you receive for the event, as well.
Thanks again for participating in the first-ever National Gaming Day, and we look forward to doing this again with you next year!
Best,
Jenny