In the 90s when I was in high school, I volunteered at a public library in my hometown of Chesterfield, Virginia. I love books, and while I mostly just handled data entry, the librarians included me in some of their book-selection discussions too. Oh, and I got to have lunch with Redwall author Brian Jacques–that was amazing.
The most surprising part of the experience, though, was about how public libraries get their books. I had assumed that the books were all provided to the library for free, donated by publishers, patrons, or maybe the government. After all, people don’t pay entrance fees to walk into a library, so why would the books cost anything to the library?
But that’s not how public libraries work. They have a budget, and they use that budget to buy books (typically from distributors like Ingram). It seemed so obvious after I learned this information–of course book publishers weren’t just giving away thousands of every copy of every book to libraries. Rather, it’s a win-win-win situation: Publishers have a major customer in libraries, libraries get a big discount on books, and patrons get access to a wide variety of books they wouldn’t have otherwise paid for individually.
And it’s not just books. Libraries are repositories of all sorts of media: music, movies, and even board games. They’re also community centers and hubs just as much as they are places for borrowing media, and they reach a wide spectrum of people.
As a game publisher myself, over the years I’ve received requests from a handful of libraries asking if we would donate games to them, and I’ve seen posts on social media from libraries asking the same thing. It made me wonder if something had changed since the 90s–maybe libraries no longer buy the media on their shelves? If not, why were libraries asking game publishers to donate media but not book publishers?
So I reached out to Jenn Bartlett, a librarian, gamer, YouTuber, and games-in-libraries advocate. Jenn graciously offered to chat with me for a few minutes about the current state of public libraries, how they acquire media, what they think about tabletop games, and what game publishers can do to better serve librarians. Here’s what I learned:
In relation to games, there are a few different tiers of libraries:
- Libraries with gamers among their leadership. These libraries are already actively buying, stocking, and programming a variety of games. Jenn is in this category.
- Libraries that have games but limited knowledge of what to pursue (focus on gateway games).
- Libraries that don’t have games or knowledge of them but want to start carrying them.
- Libraries that don’t have games and don’t want them.
Jenn indicated that #2 and #3 are the biggest categories. She shared a well-populated Facebook group called the League of Librarian Gamers where librarians discuss which games to carry. I’ve since joined it–publishers are welcome there. Jenn also shared the challenge of replacement parts for games in libraries and that the most checked-out games are typically on the lighter end of the gaming spectrum.
Jenn confirmed that libraries do indeed still have budgets–that’s how they acquire the media on their shelves.
However, libraries currently don’t have many great options for obtaining games, so instead they turn to a variety of sources: FLGS (Friendly Local Game Stores), Amazon, donation requests to publishers (or purchasing directly from publishers who have programs like the one HABA has on their website), book distributors like Ingram, and game distributors like Peach State.
I’ll repeat that for a second, because it was particularly enlightening to me: Public libraries still have budgets, but they request games from publishers because in most cases that’s the only way for them to obtain games at anything less than full MSRP.
Well, now the donation requests make sense. Easy access to obtaining our games is a solution we can provide at Stonemaier Games. In fact, it was incredibly easy to set up with the help of coworker Alex.
Here’s our Library Support Program. It involves several options for public and school libraries to purchase our games at a discount:
- Sign up with proof of your tax-exempt status to order games directly from Stonemaier Games’ webstore at a 40-50% discount, tax free.
- Apply here to qualify as a “vendor” with US-based game distributor Peach State Hobby. They’re the only game distributor I’m aware of that directly sells to librarians.
- Purchase our games from US-based book distributor Ingram. This is a work in progress.
So far we’ve had 11 libraries sign up for our direct-purchase program (this is definitely the quickest, easiest, and most direct way for us to serve libraries). That’s just a tiny sliver of the total number of libraries in the US alone, and we’re open to improvements if we can better serve more libraries.
The one other big challenge I learned from my conversation with Jenn is that many librarians simply don’t know which games to acquire. The League of Librarian Gamers is extremely helpful in those regards–just join the group and ask for recommendations. Jenn’s YouTube channel is also great. And if you’re a patron at a local library and you want them to carry a specific game, tell them! There are thousands of great games, and librarians want to carry the games that their patrons want to play.
If you have any thoughts about this solution or you’ve seen different solutions implemented elsewhere, feel free to share in the comments. And I’d love to hear from librarians if they have any thoughts, ideas, insights, or recommendations.
Update: Librarian gamer Rebecca Strange shared that there is a way for you to donate money to the Games and Gaming Round Table, the funds for which can be used for a gaming grant (if you specify that’s what you want). Go to the Donate page, select “Roundtables,” then select “GameRT”:
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23 Comments on “Public Libraries and Game Publishers”
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Can I contribute directly to library games? I think I can find ways to make a significant contribution given time.
Interesting post and a very nice opportunity you are providing Jamey.
I am not a librarian, but I have volunteered at a few local monthly Chicago area suburban librarian Meetup’s events. The librarian uses the Meetup Event as a way to “prove the concept” that people will play games.
One library provides space and some light refreshments as well as about 40 games to play during their 4 hour Sunday afternoon Games For Grown-Ups event. People are also free to play any game they bring to play. There is also a dedicated Maj Jong group that utilizes that event.
Another librarian runs a monthly game night on a weeknight where there is a “Featured Game” with a few copies available (library collection and brought by me or another gamer) and a few teachers to teach & lead the game play. There are about 20 games in this library’s collection available during the event and also for play in the library itself any day or to check out and take home. Light refreshments are provided here too. People are also free to bring and play anything they want.
If you are a gamer, you like to introduce people to games, and you like to volunteer your time – then reach out to your local library and offer to help. I found it very rewarding to help the librarian, but also library patrons who had no idea about these games.
I would also like to mention The Spiel Foundation (goolge it) and the work that they do to put bundles of games in the places where people of all ages can use more fun in their lives. Children’s hospitals, Boys & Girls Clubs, Schools, Libraries, Senior Centers and more. The Spiel Foundation can use publisher donations, individual financial donations or donations of your time as they work to build their network of gamers who can get the games in the bundles played at these locations.
Game on!
Thanks for sharing this, Chris! I’ll check out the Spiel Foundation.
I’m 5.5 years into curating a board game collection for my library. My initial collection was donations from the League of Librarian Gamers’ list and a few games the library had previously purchased. That served as proof of concept, and I’ve been fortunate to have my budget grow, along with circulations.
PHD Games has been a helpful source, though the minimum purchase, while small, could still be prohibitive to small libraries. And because of exclusivity agreements, there are some publishers they don’t carry. I’m thankful I’m able to get Stonemaier Games through there :)
In past years, I’d supplemented my buying with an online retailer, which usually had good discounts, but credit card problems (other vendors) got that restricted. Seems cities don’t like to pay before getting goods, and retailers don’t like shipping before getting paid ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Amazon fills that gap now.
Scott: I’ve heard a few librarians echo the “proof of concept” approach. I think that’s a great thing for librarians to mention when they’re at that stage–personally, I think I would be much more receptive to helping out at that stage if there is an acknowledgment that the hope is the library will eventually purchase some of our games (at a healthy discount) rather than just asking for something free with no context at first contact.
This was fascinating, as I just discovered my public library has games! I think it’s a new venture, but the games are not new, so maybe they have a committed staff member buying second-hand or had donations of games (mostly gateway games). Next time I’m in I’ll ask if they know about this or accept donated games.
Thank you! I feel luck that our local library carries games and has at least one person who is knowledgeable in them. Before Covid, they were organizing play once a month to introduce a particular game to people. I hope this comes back.
I am so grateful to check out games and finding if the games I’m curious about are good. I got play Scythe and Viticulture this way among many great games and seek them out for my own collection. I think this is a positive thing for the publishers especially if the other people checking out the games might be eyeing to maybe adding them to their own collection.
Some great points have been made here! I run a games collection that is less than a year old for a rural public library. We don’t have a budget for our library of things, and run entirely off of donations. This is fairly common for small community libraries that are trying something new, until they can prove to their director or board that it’s viable and will circulate. When I started the collection, I asked a number of publishers if they would consider donating, and enough did that I was able to get a healthy start. Without these publisher donations as a seed there wouldn’t have been an opportunity to bring these to our patrons. Even the projected budget for next year now that it has proven successful is only planned to cover replacements, not new acquisitions. Donations are the lifeblood of smaller libraries.
Thanks for your insight, Emma, and I think it’s great that you include games in your library. Just so I can better understand, does your library operate solely from donated media? That is, when you say, “We don’t have a budget for our library of things,” what “things” does that include?
It’s also neat that your director is open to adding games to the budget if it’s proven that they will circulate. Have you found that to be the case with games so far?
While I can’t speak for Emma’s library of things, the “library of things” concept is spreading among public libraries. In addition to board games, some libraries now lend non-media items like mobile hotspots, gardening tools, musical instruments,sewing machines, bicycle repair tools, fishing rods, specialty cake pans, GoPros, and other stuff people may need to borrow just once to fix something, or to try something before they buy for themselves.
Here’s one example in Indiana: https://www.pageafterpage.org/library-of-things
Ah, that makes sense–thank you for clarifying, Danielle!
I’m late in responding, but I think it’s still worth contributing! Danielle is correct in her definition of a Library of Things, a multimedia lending model that’s gaining traction in many libraries. My games collection has circulated very well, and budget projections are looking good to free up around $100 a year to replace lost and stolen items. The collection that I manage has a total of 38 games, half donated by staff members from their personal collections and half by publishers. My library is lucky, though. Of the three other libraries in our service consortium, ours is the only one that has a budget this year for purchasing new items. The other libraries are purchasing all of their books, equipment, and media with donation money until their city budgets recover from COVID. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have our collection up and running and embraced so enthusiastically by our patrons!
Thank you, Emma! It’s very helpful to know that.
On Facebook, Rebecca S shared the following comment that I thought was really insightful:
It’s not just that options for tax-exempt, less-than-MSRP prices are hard to come by, though that is a huge issue at the moment. Other big problems are funding, community support, and hobby knowledge.
Some libraries (particularly smaller communities and/or rural libraries) simply don’t have the money to create and maintain a new collection, even if they have gamers on staff with the knowledge to build a game collection.
Or, even when the money might be there, librarians who want to start gaming collections don’t have enough vocal support from the community. It’s a million times easier to buy media that the community is requesting, so if you want to see something at your library, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE speak up. A patron (or better, dozens or hundreds of patrons) saying “I’d like to be able to check out board games” will go so much further than a gamer librarian asking management if they can start a collection.
Libraries often have limited funds and are reluctant to spend those funds on things that library management/boards think won’t circulate. Another issue that goes with this is hobby knowledge — if library staff aren’t familiar with games, it’s a harder sell to get games in that library.
Book publishers also do things like create book discussion lists, which help libraries with programs like book clubs.
Things games publishers could do to convince libraries to buy their games and help librarians build programs around games:
1) Create printable player aids that help us teach groups how to play (printable also meaning low-ink!) — if we run programs, we are often teaching people new to the hobby how to play, so they aren’t all going to be comfortable with following along in a rules PDF and many games don’t have great player aid sheets
2) Create physical-to-virtual conversion kits — can your game be played in an online setting? Help librarians facilitate that!
3) Create educational sell sheets! What skills can players develop by playing your game? Is your game language independent? This would be a useful tool for language learning programs, homeschool groups, STEM programs, etc.
Interesting post, Jamey…I had a conversation with a gamer-friend of mine who serves now as the Assistant Director at a Pennsylvania library. Now that she’s in a position to make certain decisions, she would very much like to open the holdings’ aperture to include board games, but it certainly wasn’t the focus of the previous assistant director. I was also surprised that my local library told me that they don’t accept books for their shelves but will in-turn sell the books at regular intervals to raise money to purchase books and other items for the library.
Thanks for sharing this, Joe! That’s interesting that some libraries don’t actually accept book donations.
If a library accepts book donations, the books don’t always end up on the shelves for circulation (same for any item that gets donated to a library), in addition to being added to a circulating collection, donated items might:
— end up in a book/media sale to benefit the library (the library I work for has three locations and each location has a book sale area)
— get sent to schools or other community groups (sometimes items in good condition are already well stocked at the library, but by working with community partners, others can benefit!)
— get recycled (libraries don’t need everyone’s encyclopedias or National Geographic magazines or Reader’s Digests… and, sadly, a lot of people use their library as a public dump and are donating things no one wants, and chances are a library might not want it either because it’s out of date, in poor condition, etc. – using a library to dump things in this manner creates more work for the library, wasting time and money. Call your library ahead of time to see if they can accept your donation – sometimes even something that might be valuable won’t be accepted because the public library isn’t the appropriate venue.)
— get used for programming, either as recycled craft material, added to a book club stash, used as a giveaway, etc.
This can happen with game donations and other item donations, too!
Some libraries do decide to stop accepting donations all together because of how much work is created by processing items they can’t actually use.
Thank you so much! This is such an amazing opportunity. I’m a school librarian in a small private school, we’re not particularly wealthy so my budget is usually $100 for the year plus whatever we get from the book fair. This budget covers library, makerspace and coding so most of it goes to consumables for maker projects and book acquisition. I believe in getting games in libraries so over my tenure as librarian I’ve been gathering games through donations and buying them myself directly. Programs like this will help me stretch my out of pocket dollars so much further!!!
Thank you for sharing this, Amy–it’s helpful to know that there’s a wide range of budgets in various libraries.
Keep an eye out for the ALA Games & Gaming Round Table’s Game On! grant as a potential funding source for game collections/programming! The submission period is Jan 1 to Mar 1 each year. https://www.ala.org/rt/gamert/game-grants