This Saturday, the American Library Association will celebrate its first-ever National Gaming Day @ your library. Here, Dale Lipschultz, literacy officer for the ALA’s Office for Literacy and Outreach Services, talks about the importance of the event to ALA.

“It’s an opportunity for ALA as the national organization to recognize what libraries across the country are doing to bring games and gaming to their patrons,” she says. “But it’s also a chance for the public libraries primarily to have unified and organized gaming programs at the library on one particular designated day.”

ALA is providing several opportunities for libraries to participate. Lipschultz says Hasbro is shipping a copy of the board game Pictureka! to every public library across the nation. “What we’re hoping is that, with this distribution and this focus, that libraries can help us set a record for the most number of people playing a single game on the same day in the library.”

In addition, there will be a national video game tournament. Libraries can go online and register to compete with other libraries in their community or across the country. By registering, they will be eligible to receive more games.

For more information, visit http://www.ilovelibraries.org/gaming/. - Contributed by Macey Morales, manager, media relations, ALA Public Information Office, and Steve Zalusky, manager of communications, ALA Public Information Office.

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