Back in July 2007 we hosted our very first Video Game Night after going to a workshop hosted by Eli Neiburger. It was a success with about 12 teens showing up. This year we had another one in July and we had 25 teens show up. This was a surprise to us, and our accommodations were bursting at the seams. With it being so successful, we had to start having it at the Community Center next door, with a nice spacious setting. It also helped us set up a 4 dates a year Video Game Night schedule that we can hold tournaments and have prizes for the kids who come. We are actually expecting anywhere from 30–50 kids to be at our next event. It is growing quite rapidly.

This has also required a lot of extra cooperation between portions of the library. We have pages and IT along with Teen Services all working together to make it happen. We even put money in our budget for staff shirts so the kids could find us more easily. It’s been a blast and a lot of work all the way out.

I hope to find more wonderful gems pop up from this RSS feed!

Becky, this is actually pretty easy to do in a school, and many of your colleagues are offering both videogames and boardgames in the media center. Some resources to help you:

In both issues of Library Technology Reports that I wrote about gaming in libraries, I include a case study of a school library offering games. First issue, second issue.
Chris Harris and Brian Mayer are doing great work around the AASL infolit standards and gaming. See BOCES Gaming blog, Library Gamer, and Digital Reshift.
We dedicated some sessions from last year’s TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium to school libraries, and you can listen to the podcasts here. At this year’s event in November, we have another half-day track dedicated to gaming in school libraries.

I hope this helps, but you can definitely do it!