Northeast Wars X

Last year, the American Library Association (ALA) began a campaign to promote playing games in public libraries across the nation. It certainly makes sense as a way to promote literacy and active reading skills, as any gamer can tell you, playing games not only sharpens reading comprehension and ability to reason, but they help young people develop interaction skills through personal experience. Sportsmanship and empathy come first hand in many game-playing situations.

The program included National Gaming Day on November 15th of 2008. Libraries across America hosted games of all kinds. Publishers Wizards of the Coast and Top Trumps donated games to many libraries to get people playing. You can read more about the day, its goals and results here. It remains to be heard whether there will be a National Gaming Day 2009, but we’re keeping an eye on things.

Additionally, a number of libraries, from a very large pool of applicants, recently received grants to implement game programs that span both tabletop and electronic components. Hopefully this movement will gather strength and spread to more public libraries. You can follow the ALA’s gaming-related efforts at their blog and check out the resources they offer as well.

We know that locally, some libraries have begun to build game programs of their own. Montpelier, VT’s Kellogg-Hubbard Library hosted the Ace of Games program over this past winter, running a variety of board and card games Saturday mornings. Ilsley Library, in Middlebury, VT, has hosted overnight sessions of Dungeons & Dragons.

Give your local librarian a call to see what game programs they offer. And if they don’t, why not help get one going? The gaming hobby needs people out there, showing why it’s fun and worth people’s time.

It’s happened to all of us. Tooling around the internet late one night, you type in your own name, just to see what turns up. Northeast Wars staffers aren’t immune to it, either. The odd thing about searching for a convention’s name is you may turn up stuff you never thought existed.

Take, for example, this item from the FAQ of the Usenet group rec.games.frp.dnd, entitled Is *D&D really the tool of the Devil? In it, Steffan O’Sullivan — of Plymouth State University, host of Econocon? — relates the content of a seminar given by Michael Stackpole at Northeast Wars in 1993!