------------------------------------------------------------------ Playability Podcast Episode 28: Gaming at the Library Run time: 22 minutes, 32 seconds Episode recorded by Rebecca Strang. Playability is produced by Mike Risley. Transcript auto-generated by Temi and edited by Mike Risley and Rebecca Strang. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Intro Music: 00:00 Rebecca Strang: 00:09 Hello and welcome to Playability where we hold conversations at the crossroads of gameplay and accessibility. I'm your host, Rebecca Strang, and I'm joined today by Jenn Bartlett, also known as the Boardgame Librarian. Jenn works at the Manchester Public Library where she curates a circulating tabletop games collection and organizes a gaming club program. You also may have seen her on the Dice Tower's Board Game Breakfast show in her "From the Page to the Shelf" segment. Welcome to the show, Jenn! Jenn Bartlett: 00:39 Thanks so much for having me on, Rebecca. I've been thinking about this last couple of days and being so excited like a librarian powwow that we're having, right? Rebecca Strang: 00:48 Yeah, we can geek out about libraries. Jenn Bartlett: 00:51 Yeah, and the wonderful possibilities of gaming in libraries. So, thanks again for having me on. Rebecca Strang: 00:57 Yeah, I'm very happy to have you. So to get started, can you tell us a bit about the collection that you curate at Manchester? How you proposed the idea and how it got from an idea to what it is today? Jenn Bartlett: 01:09 So it started almost four years ago this very time of year, my husband and I were heading off to Gen Con for the first time and we were, you know, really, really, really starting to make that full dive into gaming ourselves. And I'm a big believer in bringing programs to my library that I'm passionate about because I feel like our patrons feed off of that when we are very passionate about the programs that we host. That they enjoy coming, they come back and they too become very passionate about the topic. Rebecca Strang: 01:44 Yeah, definitely. Jenn Bartlett: 01:45 And you've, I'm sure you've noticed that too. When you're enthusiastic, your patrons love it. So I said to my boss, "Hey, I'm going to this huge convention. You know, I'd love to start a game program here in our library, but let's start it for free." And he kind of went, "Okay. All right, well let's see how this goes." You know, kind of, "Ehhhh, alright, yeah uhuh." And went there to Gen Con, dutiful librarian with all of our business cards. And you know, when we go over with our spiel and the actual collection started off with Rio Grande, walking into their booth, kind of saying, hey, you know the normal, I'm starting our game collection that my library starting a new club, can I take your card? Didn't even get that far. Gentleman in the booth said, "Hey, well, you know, hold on a second, I'll be right back." He went in the booth and like brought three games out and that started my collection right then and there. It was a really wonderful experience because I went back several years later and I thanked him, you know, and I said, you know, it really meant a lot to me, your generosity right on the spot there, you didn't think about it, you didn't have to talk with superiors or you know, kind of awww, well let me look at my donation list and see if we've done too much this year. You just did it right then and there. And he said, "You know that, that's so awesome to hear." And he went back in the booth and brought out more game. So, and Rio Grande, I think in library land has a wonderful reputation for being generous and I witnessed it right then and there. So four years later we are up to 275 games. We have a game collection in all three Departments: adult, teen and children's. That's new. And each month we circulate anywhere from 150 to 200 games from October, 2017 to September 2018 it was over 1200 games that we circulated in one year. Rebecca Strang: 03:49 That's awesome. Jenn Bartlett: 03:49 It's been great. And to give some context on the community that I work for, cause I think that's really important too. 60,000 people and we're like an urban/suburban community about 15 minutes outside of Hartford, Connecticut, a former mill town. We were known for some of the best silk mills in the world back in the 1800s, part of the 1900s very blue collar and economically very all over the place. Very diverse and it's a wonderful community to work in. Rebecca Strang: 04:24 Awesome. Yeah, it sounds like a great experience and a great collection. So as far as accessibility, what does accessibility mean for you? Jenn Bartlett: 04:34 Huh? You know, I was talking to someone recently about libraries and librarians. I think it might've been at the American Library Association's, our ALA Play event that we have every year on the Friday night of the conference. You know, if we as librarians don't believe in accessibility and inclusion, then we're in the wrong field. I mean, wouldn't you agree though? Rebecca Strang: 04:59 Yeah, definitely. Jenn Bartlett: 05:00 I mean that, that's really our mission statement and it, and I, I say to so many people too who, you know, are to the choir that we're preaching to, you know, we're one of the last places in the world, the last institutions where you can go, you can be anyone from anywhere, you can be homeless, you can be rich, you can be a student, you can be a mom with five kids and come in and all be welcomed in our doors. And that's, that's important to me. So building our collection and circulating our collection, I wanted it to be very accessible in terms of, you know, how it was presented to patrons, how long they could check things out in terms of our fine structure as well. We believe at our library, since we have kind of very economically diverse community, that we don't necessarily want to penalize and our fines are just 15 cents a day. So that's not bad. Yeah. You know, having games that go from all skill levels to that, it's not just a collection for, you know, my really hardcore gamers who come out once a month to play games that it's, it had easier stuff, you know, kind of your non-gamer could pick up and play and take home. Cause we want those experiences for our patrons. Right? We want them to come in. I feel like they could. Tackle a board game from our collection and feel confident about it and bring it home and share that experience with their family, their friends or coworkers, neighbors. And it's all about building community too. We want the community to have positive experiences with these. Rebecca Strang: 06:43 Yeah, definitely. And one of my favorite things about doing games at the library is that the library itself is a space to play. You know, if you can't play at home or you don't have people to play with at home, you can come to a library program and play with people there and potentially even have people, staff or volunteers, who can teach you to play a game if you need to learn a game. And then simply just having the access to the games themselves because games are not cheap. Not Everybody can afford to go out and pick up the hot new games that are out there. So a library collection, just having the access to those is fantastic for a lot of people. Jenn Bartlett: 07:21 And I've heard that from so many people too. Our collection is close to two years old and it's really evolved from the adult collection that I had and even just the numbers that we had in terms of other departments. But, again, many of the people who are checking my games out aren't my hardcore gamers. They're a lot of families, they're are people who are transitioning from traditional to modern game. And again, they will say, you know, I can't afford this and having this here, providing this experience and being able to do this, teaching my children how to play games or playing this with my parents when we're at Thanksgiving is very important to me. Without this service it would be a loss. Yeah. So it's... And that providing that space too. There's so much talk out there for third spaces that we, are not like a friendly local game store that we don't charge you for play time or charge you for using the library, the Games Library. Oh that there are people like me and my group who teach you, you don't have to worry about that or you don't have to even worry about going into a game store and wondering how you're going to be treated there. That we're a friendly, happy group of people who really want you to be there. And we have players for people, you know, we have the space. So it's all about, again, that access and inclusion to making you feel welcome at our table. Rebecca Strang: 08:54 Definitely. And so are there any specific decisions that you've made regarding your collection with accessibility in mind, as far as labels or the location in the library? Jenn Bartlett: 09:05 So there's a couple of things I have learned. You know, I think as librarians, too, we start out with, you know, oh we're, we're going to do this. And then you really see how your patrons interact with it and you learn from that. And that's one of the beautiful... That's one of the beautiful things about enjoying what we do too. Because, something may not be in your frame of mind and then you're like, oh yeah, I should really do that. And I've talked with you about this before on a separate project, but so GMT had donated Dominant Species to my collection very early on. Again, they're super generous to libraries and their, you know, their stuff's also not cheap. And this game was going out this very weird amount of times, like way more than it should've been. And it was kind of people who were not my hardcore gamers who were checking it out, and it was coming back like right away within the next couple of days. People who know Dominant Species, it's not that kind of game! You get up to take it home, you got to digest it, you gotta read the rule book, it takes 10 days to set it up and 10 days to take it down. You've got to find five people who are willing to play it with you. And it's hard! It's a hard game. And I was looking at this, I'm like, you know, we have to be problem solvers too. So I'm saying, "Why is this game going out so much?" So I'm looking at the cover and I'm going, okay, oh, it's got cute little dinosaurs on it. People are ticking your home thinking it's maybe like Jurassic World and Park that game. So that's how I ended up with difficulty stickers on our games, and my boss fought me on it. He's not a sticker kind of person, but I really fought back on it because it was becoming an accessibility problem because again, we want to manage our patrons expectations too. Right? And make sure that they have wonderful experiences taking these things home. We don't want them to be frustrated, to be, you know, open the box and be like, good gosh, what did I get myself into? You know, and then bring it back and never check out a game again. We don't want that. Rebecca Strang: 11:13 Yeah, that would be the worst. Jenn Bartlett: 11:15 That's the worst, right. You know, and here was our new service and I'm thinking, well this has gotta change. So I put difficulty stickers on them. I used Board Game Geek's Rating System and kind of came up with a modified version of my own going from easy to hard and noticed an immediate difference. So that was very positive. Our collections out in our lobby as well too. So it, you know, it's very visible to patrons. It's very appealing. It gets a lot of foot traffic. You know, our library unfortunately has other kind of general accessibility issues. So if a patron isn't able to reach something, we have Pages who are very, very helpful and can reach things for patrons We're not fully ADA compliant. In my library. We were grandfathered in on a bunch of different things, which is deeply unfortunate but, you know another thing that is on my fall plan, cause you know, Rebecca, how summer goes in a library. Rebecca Strang: 12:15 Yup. Jenn Bartlett: 12:17 And I'm not always there to help patrons pick out something if they are giving it the look of what? I'm going to try to come up with a binder of if you like this, you would like this. To provide more gamer advisory for our patrons to further make it even more accessible. Rebecca Strang: 12:35 Yeah. I liked the idea of a play-a-like binder. Jenn Bartlett: 12:39 Yeah. Cause I can't be in front of the collection all the time as much as I would love to. You know it. Rebecca Strang: 12:46 You mean you don't live at the library, Jenn? Jenn Bartlett: 12:49 Yeah. Oh yeah. Rebecca Strang: 12:51 I love when kids ask me that. Jenn Bartlett: 12:53 This magical land of libraries. But hey, I would love to, but my cats need me. They need their momma. Rebecca Strang: 13:00 Yeah, definitely. Jenn Bartlett: 13:02 Yeah, absolutely. Rebecca Strang: 13:05 Well I knew you already mentioned the American Library Association's Annual Conference and the Games and Gaming Round Table doing the ALA Play event. So can you talk a little bit about the resources that are available through ALA and the Round Table for librarians who are looking to start either a gaming program or a collection at their libraries? Jenn Bartlett: 13:27 So one of the best resources is League of, and I'm gonna type it into Facebook right now, League of Librarian Gamers. That's one of the best resources to kind of start off with. It's the Facebook page that is run by the Games and Gaming Round Table and on there is a file tab where there's this huge and wonderful publisher donation file that people have added to over many, many years who they've contacted, what kind of luck they've had, what they've received, if they haven't received any, and if it was a warm welcome to from publishers. We're also working on a toolkit through the ALA's website and more resources, you know, kind of kind of fact-sheets and sheets. Librarians LOVE our sheets, right? We love, we love those handouty sheets, Rebecca Strang: 14:19 Sheets and bibliographies. Jenn Bartlett: 14:22 Oh, we love those. To kind of help get people started too. There's a blog on there as well that people can access where librarians from all across the country are writing on particular topics, writing reviews of games. It is all written right now, but at our meeting, our annual meeting at ALA, we're talking about having more podcasts and more videos too, which again I think that adds another level of accessibility to it. And people have different preferences too. They may not like written reviews. They may like video reviews instead, they're more visual learners. So that's one thing and we, since I'm the now president of The Round Table, we are encouraging and looking for more people to join our specific committees too. And it helps, it just helps, we're looking to have more people who are into RPGs, the computer, and video gaming aspect. Since we tend to be very analog based, it just broadens our scope and really include people at the table who do other kinds of gaming. Rebecca Strang: 15:31 Yeah, and I'm really looking forward to start working with the Round Table as well. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Jenn Bartlett: 15:36 I'm excited to have you on, and you have a much broader RPG knowledge to then I think many of us do, which is amazing. I'm so excited about it. So it's good to have you, have you aboard. I'm excited. Yay! Rebecca Strang: 15:51 Yeah, me too. And the Facebook group you mentioned, The League of Librarian Gamers, is awesome. I check on that all the time. And the Round Table blog is great too. I love seeing all the new posts that are popping up on there from all kinds of different types of gamers in the library world. Jenn Bartlett: 16:08 Yeah. And it provides an opportunity for people to be involved on a very low level too. And low commitment because we're all super busy. You know, we all have budget cuts or staffing issues. So it's a much lower level of commitment. Rebecca Strang: 16:23 Yeah, definitely. So what's your favorite part of running the gaming group at your library? Jenn Bartlett: 16:30 So I think seeing it evolve over the years, we're going to have our four year anniversary in October. And to me that's just, it's just insane. And I, I sat with a very specific purpose in mind. The purpose was, and I, I should back track a little, as a female Gamer, getting more females to the table was immensely important to me. Immensely. Because even today going to our FLGS, there will be times when I am the only female there, or person who identifies as a female. And *deep meaningful sigh*, I mean, you know, it feels, it can be like *deep sigh* not an odd feeling but very, a very lonely feeling almost. Rebecca Strang: 17:22 Yeah, it's disheartening. There are definitely stores that I avoid because of experiences I've had there. Jenn Bartlett: 17:27 Absolutely. You know, and it's, I mean, *sigh* it's not because my FLGS doesn't, you know, isn't inclusive and doesn't welcome everyone there. It's just, you know, that's sometimes how it happens and it, that was very important to me to be very welcoming to everyone who came in, but to really encourage female to come. And there are many times at my group when it's, you know, half and half and that is wonderful to me. It was very important to me as well too, to have Millennials coming into our program. Because you know, while a lot of Millennials are going to game stores to play or going out to Brewery Nights, they're not necessarily coming to a library and using library services. So that was kind of one of my hopes and hooks, "Hey, you know, I have this really cool library game program. Come on in! We're not charging you anything! Free!" You know... Rebecca Strang: 18:26 Free is a good word. Jenn Bartlett: 18:26 We're always free pushers, aren't we? You know, we love the free stuff and you know, but it's really grown in terms of even beyond my expectations. People who are, you know, from many different walks of life, people who are in many different age ranges too. I've had even someone who, who was homeless and coming to my programs and it's a beautiful moment right there; when you are giving someone an opportunity to forget what their situation is in life. You are providing them with a couple of hours of respite, maybe from the cold or the extreme heat and you're helping them just be themselves. Rebecca Strang: 19:15 Remember that they're human. Jenn Bartlett: 19:16 Remember that they're human, and to not have that stigma because you and I are putting that stigma on them. We, we see them as human, but many people don't. And to see people at the table interact and just, you know, have normal regular conversations too and, and really just welcome this person. Jenn Bartlett: 19:38 It's been very beautiful. Yeah. So that's happened somewhat recently and I've been really proud of my group too. And one of the things that I must say that I'm also proud about my group is we don't take any baloney. We've kind of weeded out jerks and people who say inappropriate things and people who are not welcoming or who don't want to play games with certain people or are just not nice people or say, you know, gendered kind of things, you know, like, "Oh I don't want them." And I've had someone say this to me personally: Oh you know, you know, you're, you're just a, you know, a lady Gamer there, and be very dismissive of me. And I was like, "Oh, okay. Alright, well you can just walk right out of that door then your attitude is not welcome here." Rebecca Strang: 20:30 Right. Jenn Bartlett: 20:31 Cause we don't want that. We don't want that kind of toxicity in our libraries first of all. Or in our game programs. This is a happy thing. This is a happy experience. Go somewhere else with that. Rebecca Strang: 20:42 Yeah, definitely. Jenn Bartlett: 20:44 You know, I mean it's... You're trying to curate the best experience and the most welcoming experience for everyone. Rebecca Strang: 20:51 Exactly. Jenn Bartlett: 20:53 And that kind of language is not, not cool! Rebecca Strang: 20:56 No, not at all. So for people who would like to keep up with you and what you're doing and all the stuff you've got going on in the gaming community, where can they find you on social media? Twitter, Instagram... Jenn Bartlett: 21:09 My wheelhouse is Instagram. I'm @boardgame.librarian. I dabble on Twitter. I'm @Boardgamelibra1 because Twitter wouldn't let me put all of that in there. And then, um, most every week I am on the Dice Tower's Board Game Breakfast with my segment. And that's been a really wonderful platform for me to kind of encourage libraries and reading and gaming and kind of, "Hey, here we are. We're librarians. We're awesome!" Rebecca Strang: 21:39 Yes, definitely. And gaming does encourage and help maintain reading skills for any parents listening. Games are not a waste of time. Jenn Bartlett: 21:48 Absolutely. I mean, you and I know the talk and we have our ready spiel when we see parents. "Oh, this encourages reading skills, out of the box creative thinking..." Yeah, we do it all the time. It's wonderful. Rebecca Strang: 22:00 Yes. Awesome. Well, thank you again so much for coming on to talk with me today and geek out with me about libraries and games. Jenn Bartlett: 22:08 Ahh! Thank you so much again for having me on. Rebecca Strang: 22:11 And for our listeners, if you have any questions or comments you would like to share with us, please email us at PlayabilityPod@gmail.com. You can also find us on major social media platforms at PlayabilityPod. Thanks again for listening. I hope this episode helps you play with a new perspective.