by Carla Pfahl
Quick Summary
Michele Leininger, Director, and Paula Nemes, Public Services Manager, with Marshall-Lyon County Library talked about their Library of Amusements program at MLA 2021.
I attended a fun session on Marshall-Lyon County Library’s Library of Amusements. Michele Leininger, Director, and Paula Nemes, Public Services Manager, with Marshall-Lyon County Library talked about their Library of Amusements program. This is a successful engagement program that is bringing patrons in the library. Through the program they lend puzzles, toys, games, curated dvd binge kits, fun kits, cake pans, and more.
They mentioned that visitors at the county fair came to their library booth and were surprised they had video games to lend. That gave way to an uptick in video game lending.
For puzzles, they keep them in circulation even if there are a couple of missing pieces. They will mark the box with noted missing pieces. Only if there are several missing pieces will they take the puzzle out of circulation. Some participants in the session mentioned they weigh their puzzles to keep track of any missing pieces instead of counting out the pieces.
Metadata is important. All cake pans, puzzles, and games are in the catalog. For cake pans it’s important to know the sizes. For puzzles, it’s also helpful to know how the size and number of pieces. In the catalog, they use a simple numbering system starting with collections’ initials: Puzzles: #P259, Children’s puzzles: #JP023, Cake Pans: #CP036, Toys and Games: Building: #B006 and Games for adults: #GA022.
The curated binge boxes have been popular with patrons. The most popular adult binge boxes are the monster ones like Godzilla. They most popular kid binge boxes are, what they call, “dark” sets with Coraline, witches and the like. They have lists of all their kits up on their website. Check them out here:
- Binge Boxes (takes to catalog list): https://opac.plumcreeklibrary.net/cgi-bin/koha/opac-search.pl?q=se,phr:%22Binge%20box.%22
- Food For Thought Book Club Kits: http://www.marshalllyonlibrary.org/readers-cafe/book-clubs/book-club-kits/
- Memory Kits: http://www.marshalllyonlibrary.org/services/outreach/memory-kits/
- Video Games: http://www.marshalllyonlibrary.org/readers-cafe/loa/video-games/
- World of Wonder Backpacks: http://www.marshalllyonlibrary.org/kids/wow/
- Pierce County Library Science 2 Go Backpacks: https://stem.pcls.us/resources/sciencetogo/
- Pierce County Library Science 2 Go Backpacks: https://stem.pcls.us/resources/sciencetogo/
