Before we begin, it's important to recognise that libraries are about books. It's right there in the name, after all - "Library" is closely derived from the Latin word for "[place] of books".

But libraries have always been about more than books being in a place. They have been about storing them, yes, but also about making them accessible. Hence the physical care of books is only part of a library's job - we also catalogue them.

Even that is just a means to an end, though, and it's important to recognise this as the familiar physical medium of books - the bound codex - moves into the electronic realm. Ultimately what a library is about is providing a place where a community can share culture, information, ideas, beauty - where human thought can be made accessible for people to engage in self-directed study and exploration. And the community is an equally important part of the equation.

Take the iconic library, the Library of Alexandria. It's estimated it held half a million scrolls. (Note: scrolls. Not codices, not books as we know them. Physical form is not the point.) In addition to shelves, chairs, tables and study spaces, it also held lecture theatres and even dissection rooms. Again, the community of self-directed learners was as much the point as the works they studied (and in turn produced - which leads us onto a whole fascinating tangent for another time).

So that's great and all, but what relevance does it have to games in libraries? Well:

• Games are a form of culture that is as old as culture. Every known culture (pretty much) has some sort of games. If libraries can support movies and music and other forms of culture, games have a place at the table too - especially since, unlike most other forms of art, the closest thing we have to a public institution dedicated to playing games is usually a casino.
• If we're talking about sharing culture, games are the form of culture that you (usually) have to share to experience. For that reason, games foster socialisation and allow members of the community to connect across demographic barriers like age, gender, ethnic background - even language.
• Further, games develop and reward theory of mind - the mental models we each have of what other people are thinking.
• Games can be serious, poetic and expressive - or trivial, silly and fun - and be so brilliantly or leadenly, just the way other forms of culture can. (Does anyone seriously dispute that, fluff though P.G. Wodehouse's work is, it's completely brilliant fluff?)
• Games are systems, and fostering intelligent literacy about systems is an important educational goal on par with fostering intelligent literacy about words.

We'll come back to each of these points over the coming months, but hopefully that will get some ideas flowing. Let us know what you think!

Bonus TED video: Your brain on video games (because who doesn't enjoy the occasional TED talk?)

(If it helps get you revved up for the event, read that in an Aussie accent: one of the people posting this blog entry is doing so from Australia. Yep, International by name, International by nature. You little beauty.)

As we posted on January 23rd, this year we are celebrating on Saturday, November 16th. Our registration form is coming out very soon - we just have to finalise the sponsorship goodies we have to offer. Our promotional resources are available under the Press Kit link at the top of the page. If you haven't already, get the date in your calendars now - and get ready to register!

And, as always, if you want to join in but can't make it on that date, you can do so whenever you like. Be sure to register anyway, so we have your details and can include your participation in our stats.

Stay tuned to this blog as well! We'll be aiming to post regularly with various interesting tidbits. Thanks again for your interest!

So mark your calendars now and book your meeting rooms for November 16 to celebrate International Games Day 2013.

Watch for more information during the next couple of months as we gear up for an even bigger year!

Despite lower numbers due to the election (many library meeting rooms were booked for early voting) and a SuperStorm that devastated communities in the northeast, the stories from the libraries that participated illustrate why we do this.

First the numbers:

• 1,281 libraries registered
• 483 libraries filled out the survey afterward
• 17,152 participants played games in libraries worldwide
• 25 libraries participated in the Mario Kart time trial tournament (see the results)
• 24 libraries participated in the Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament (the Ann Arbor (MI) District Library won again)
• 26 libraries on all 6 inhabited continents playing in 7 languages participated in the Global Gossip game (view the map of participating libraries). You can watch the phrase mutate across the globe as libraries posted their entries.Spoiler alert: read no further if you don't want to know the outcome:The phrase started out as "Life must be lived as play" and ended as "He bites snails". Awesome, right? There's definitely a Ph.D thesis in there somewhere.

As in past years, though, it's really the stories that define the day. This year the impact of gaming in libraries was brought home in a particularly strong way by those northeastern libraries that still tried to provide games for their patrons. Five libraries reported what happened at their pared-down IGD12 events. Here are two of them:

• "While many adults shared stories about their hardships following Hurricane Sandy, the children were entertained with three hours of playing time.  Families all expressed gratitude for diversion from the tough week and commented how the library always seems to come through for the community! One Mom asked if there were any games that would improve her son's math facts in addition and subtraction.  I was able to show here two games at our event that focused on this skill, but I also mentioned that games that use two dice work on this skill constantly since you have to add the two dice together.  She was surprised to hear that and was very glad she came to the library to play games with her children." - Pawling Free Library, Pawling, NY
• "Our community was affected by Tropical Storm Sandy. Many were without power all week and the schools were closed all week. I was not sure anyone would come because of the circumstances, but since there was no reason to cancel, I continued on with the event and was happy to see so many people attend. The parents said they were happy to get the kids out of the house and interacting with other kids again." - East Rutherford Memorial Library, East Rutherford, NJ

So many of the libraries reported these types of stories of positive interactions between kids who previously didn't know each other, families playing together, games solidifying relationships between staff and patrons, and more. A small sample of this year's comments:

• "An elderly man in a wheelchair volunteered and played games with tiny tots and teens all day long.  He had a great time and the kids did too." - Highlands Ranch Library, Highlands Ranch, CO
• "Our Youth Services Department had a "Play Your Way Around the World" event that included a storyteller kicking things off with tales from around the world. The children then each received a world map and proceeded to ten different stations, each of which had a game from a different country to play. Games included Afghanistan kite making, Mayan ancient basket ball, Japanese card match game, etc. The children had such fun--there was much laughter in our Youth Department!" - Patrick Heath Public Library, Boerne, TX
• "A couple of the tweens sat down with some kids who showed interest in the Monopoly Junior game, but had no idea how to get started.  One couldn't even role dice before--they played for a solid hour before it was off to something else.    Another group who normally wouldn't be all together on the Wii shared a game, and still another got all geeked about and taught the Labyrinth game to a much younger kid and the family. The library had also recently installed games on some iPads that were received with a grant and this was a great way to premiere them!" - Chippewa Falls PL, Chippewa Falls, WI
• "The children that attended were constantly moving from one competitive game to another.  One teen said, 'Thank you for doing this for us, if you didn't have this program I wouldn't have anything to do today but sit and watch tv.'" - Allen Parish Libraries, Oberlin, LA
• "One amazing guy who seemed very shy and withdrawn all day picked up the mic for Rock Band and became this explosion of vocal energy.  Everyone was floored by the transformation." - Bellevue Public Library, Bellevue, NE
• "Two of my favorite anecdotes on international games day was watching younger teens get to know older teens while they were playing Yu-gi-oh! and seeing them help each other learn and understand the game rules. And watching older teens share the Wii game controls with younger elementary school players who then began to beat them at their own game." - Woodburn Public Library, Woodburn, OR
• "The teens enjoyed playing the donated Bookworm games from PopCap and one even said, "By playing the Bookworm game, it increased my skills of building words and made me use my brain instead of just using the computer to play shooting or racing games which don't require too much brain knowledge." - Plainview Carnegie Library, Plainview, NE
• "Our digital arts and gaming club has planned this event for the last four years.  We increase numbers each year by 20-30 guests.   The students do all the planning and implementation and they look forward to this event each year.  Many of our students have improved social connections that they would not otherwise have at school.  The relationship building and development of leadership and planning and organizational skills are the most important reasons why we continue to hold this event each year at our high school.  The students enjoy this niche of friends and skill development through this school program and it definitely improves their overall success at FCHS. " - Franklin Community High School
• "I had several new teens attend the program and many of them did not know anyone else [there], but by the end of 4 loud and hilarious rounds of Apples to Apples, I had gained a new member of our Teen Advisory Board and a couple new additions to our book club.  This is definitely an event I will be doing again and since I got my first year underway with no hassle or problems, I hope to expand next year's IGD." - Briggs Lawrence County Public Library, Grand Prairie, TX
• "One three-year-old girl played Wii bowling and Twister for the first time, and some of our regular drop-in kids who frequent the library found some new value in the IGD offerings when they happened in (they wanted to know if we could do the games every Saturday, in fact!). One of the best results of the program was that we had a lot of community and relationship building happen both because staff got to spend one-on-one time with families and because children who previously didn't know each other got to interact together to play new games." - Crooked Lake Branch Library, Coon Rapids, MN
• "One of the teens with whom I had not interacted before gave me a hug of excitement when I set up the Xbox Rock band equipment.    I am always surprised at how nicely the teens interact during gaming days.  They help us set up the equipment, teach each other how to play, and police themselves so that everyone gets a turn.  There is never fighting or hogging of the game consoles. It is a positive experience for everyone." - New Orleans Public Library, New Orleans, LA
• "The teens look forward to International Gaming Day every year. It tends to be one of our most popular programs." - The Emmett O'Neal Library, Mountain Brook, AL

Many libraries again reported that they couldn't have offered Games Day activities without the generous donations from this year's sponsors, Ravensburger (Labyrinth), PopCap  (Bookworm), and GameTable Online. We thank all of our sponsors, and we know libraries will use the donations for many years to come to provide fun and learning for their patrons.

Bloomingdale (IL) Public Library

Put Saturday, November 2 16, 2013, on your calendar now for IGD13. We'll be starting work on next year's event soon, so watch here for updates.

First of all, BIG THANKS to everyone who was able to be a part of International Games Day!  We've heard from a lot of folks who had a FANTASTIC time kart-ing on IGD and throughout the whole weekend. We had fun over this way too!

We now have the fastest times for each track, along with handy links to each track's leaderboard:

Mario Circuit
Teagan Richman
Delafield Public Library (Delafield, WI)
1:03
http://gtsystem.org/leaderboard/62/281

Luigi Circuit
Derek W
Ann Arbor District Library (Ann Arbor, MI)
1:20:484
http://gtsystem.org/leaderboard/62/129

Coconut Mall
Fox
Madrid Public Library (Madrid, IA)
2:03:335
http://gtsystem.org/leaderboard/62/132

Mushroom Gorge
Josh Beaudry
Delafield Public Library
2:00
http://gtsystem.org/leaderboard/62/280

And of course, even if your library's players weren't the very fastest of all, we hope that everyone had TONS of fun.

In the Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament, the Ann Arbor (MI) District Library defeated the Sanger (TX) Public Library for this year's bragging rights.

Congratulations to all of our winners!

Drop us a line at [ gtsystem at aadl.org ] if you have questions or are curious about other multi-site tournaments we do via GTSystem throughout the year...

THANKS FOR PLAYING!

We plan to release the full results next week....

Don't forget that GameTable Online and RPG Table Online will be opening their gaming doors for free gaming for the entire weekend of International Games Day (November 3 and 4). GameTable Online offers online versions of 28 different board games and RPG Table Online is a virtual tabletop application for playing role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons via the internet.

To participate in player-vs-player games requires only that users be 13+ and have an active email address to register and get in the fun. Registration is not required to play against computer opponents at www.gametableonline.com/index.php.

If you have questions about the GTO and RTO donation, please contact Rob Eng at reng [at] gametableonline.com.

Finally, if you signed up for the video game tournaments, you should have received further instructions from the Ann Arbor District Library this week via email. If you didn't get the email or if you still have questions about how to participate, please email them at gtsystem [at] aadl.org.

Gaming connects communities @ your library

"On Saturday, Nov. 3, more than 20,000 people in communities across the U.S. and around the world will celebrate the American Library Association’s fifth annual International Games Day @ your library. The event aims to reconnect communities through their libraries around the educational, recreational and social value of all types of games.

Why do libraries celebrate gaming? Library gaming programs encourage interaction between patrons of all ages and cultures. As games have evolved over the years to become more dynamic – requiring more interaction and socialization amongst players – so have libraries, by re-energizing themselves as community learning centers. Libraries still provide traditional services, but continue to change by offering new formats like video games and programs like family gaming nights...."

We'd appreciate your help sharing the press release on social media and pretty much everywhere else - thanks!

We'll be closing this donation at the end of Sunday night, October 21st, so hurry and register today!

Note that this map is current as of October 21, 2012. We'll do one last update on November 1.

View IGD 2012 in a full screen map

If your library hasn't registered yet, you can fill out the form now!