[Michlib-l] Board Games for Checkout

[Laura Strandt]

Hi there,

We have 79 games in our collection at the moment, ranging for ages 3 to
adult, with player counts from 1 person to 8 people ...

At any given time we have about 15-20 checked out (highest has been 32 I
believe) ...

We started circulating the collection in January with 10 titles ...

We loan them out for 7 days (clearly stated via sticker on the box) with
$1.00/day fine (almost all have been really good at getting them back on
time) ...

I think everything in the collection has gone out at least once but most
popular are younger kid/family games but some lighter strategy (Ticket to
Ride, Splendor, Trekking National Parks, Catan) go out often as well.

Least popular are the higher strategy, 60-90 minute + games with lots of
cards and thick instruction manuals. They go out to our more advanced
players every so often but given those were all donated by publishers, I
don't feel too bad having them sit there :)

I have them labeled with cost of replacement, fine amount, 7-day loan
period, age, minute amount, number of players on the front for all to see
...

I use Grafiti bands (from Amazon) to keep the box together (if it gets
dropped, stuff won't fly everywhere) and the innards are sorted, labeled
with dollar store plastic storage and ziploc bags. I have a laminated
contents sheet in each one listing everything ...

Online, I have a webpage listing all the games in the catalog and links to
youtube videos on how to play them because, frankly, some of those things
are not easy until you watch someone play them then you're like, "dang,
that wasn't as hard as the directions made it sound' ...

I tape up box edges, seams on instruction booklets, write on the outside of
storage containers what pieces should be inside ...

And I am the one who checks them ... they get returned and put on my desk
and I go through them looking for missing pieces...

We've had a few but I've either gotten them back from patrons, had spare
parts which were included in the game or gotten free replacements from
publishers.

As for doing differently, I'm discovering that some of the cheaper
cardboard boxes for the kids games (I'm looking at you Yeti in my Spaghetti
and Don't Rock the Boat) have collapsed under knee pressure, dropping,
kicking and general manhandling so my next thing is to figure out just how
to replace the boxes without having to buy a whole new game ...

If you go to http://hamburglibrary.org/BoardGames.html you can see a list
of what we offer at the moment ...

Thanks and if you need anything else, give me a holler ...

-Laura Strandt
Hamburg Township Library


From: michlib-l-bounces at mcls.org <michlib-l-bounces at mcls.org> On Behalf Of
Katrina Rogers via Michlib-l
Sent: Monday, August 5, 2019 2:52 PM
To: michlib-l at mcls.org
Subject: [Michlib-l] Board games for checkout

Hi all,

We're considering adding some board games to our collection for checkout,
and we have some questions for libraries that offer them (or if you used
to offer them, but don't anymore, that would be great to hear too):

-How popular are they overall?
-How long are they available for checkout?
-What are some of your most and least popular titles?
-What types of games are most popular (kids', strategy, party, etc)?
-Is there anything you wish you had done differently?

--
Katrina Rogers
Library/Technical Staff
Crawford County Library
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