[Michlib-l] Board Games for Checkout

[gburke at ci.dearborn-heights.mi.us]

Hi Laura,

Wonderful information. And your website gaming information is  
outstanding. When you said you needed a way to send out the games with  
broken boxes, the first thing that popped into my head were the photo  
storage boxes from Michael's Here's the link;  
https://www.michaels.com/clear-photo-storage-case-by-recollections/10468953.html.

Hope this might help,

Gretchen Burke
John F. Kennedy, Jr Library
Dearborn Heights



Quoting Laura Strandt via Michlib-l <michlib-l at mcls.org>:

> 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