How do you select your games?

When it comes to selecting games, I use a few resources to choose. The first is just my knowledge of games. I’ve played a lot and especially at the start of the collection, I knew more games that were fantastic than we had. Anymore, my personal knowledge only gets me so far.

So I turn to Board Game Geek to get a lot of the initial selection ideas and learn about games in a broad sense. Then I often go to YouTube to watch videos and see if the game play feels like it matches up to the description. If there’s a game convention nearby, try and go to play the newest games in person and get a sense for what the new trends are.

I mentioned game cafes earlier, and I have gone to play games there to test them out before purchasing games for the collection. In Columbus, we have a large game club that has a lot of games called CABS which I can use to try before I buy.

On your handout I’ve got a few websites and video series that have been helpful in learning more about games in the past. I would suggest any of those. Likewise, there is a Facebook group of librarians that do games, and their hive mind is really helpful in knowing if something is a hyped up flop or a secret treasure.