And a library ap for the DS would be cool, but what would you want it to do?

I really enjoyed your first podcast, keep up the good work.

My name is Carl and I’m a professional librarian working in Derbyshire specialising in working with children and teenagers.

I love playing games of all kinds – really not fussy – but it seems to me that the market on this side of the Atlantic is both static and fragmented.

We have kids playing Games Workshop miniatures games and adults playing historical minis and occasionally board games. Although Games Workshop have been really successful in reaching out to first schools and then libraries many of their players will only play the Warhammers or LOTR, “’cos, y’know it’s the Workshop hobby innit?” No, it’s boardgames and it’s wargames and it’s roleplaying.

Outside of work I belong to a games club which plays mostly minis (I play a WWII games called Flames of War, most play GW games) and even there it’s really difficult to get them interested in board games. They play Settlers and Talisman occasionally so I’m trying to tempt them with Dungeoneer and the old GW party/card game Chaos Marauders without much success.

I am introducing games to some of my existing reading groups. We have Book Chase and I’m considering buying Once Upon a Time and Apples to Apples to play with these groups.

I’m also going to the National Youth Libraries Group conference this year (roughly analogous to ALA conference I guess but for those who work with children and young people) to talk about a project where a group of young people will design a serious (video)game to advertise libraries which will be programmed by members of the Computing Department at a local university. Because it’s a 3 day residential conference while I’m there I’m going to try to organise an informal game or two in the bar to introduce some people to the joys of gaming and to show them the possibilities for their library service.

So I would really appreciate any suggestions for games that reading groups of different ages might enjoy and can also be played in the fairly confined space of a bar!

I’m also hoping to take my Wii for a bit of open gaming during the weekend.

It’s nice to be able to put a voice to some very familiar names, Beth and Eli particularly, Scott’s voice is very familiar from On Board Games and Board Games with Scott although that’s not a bad thing! Ra!

Anyway, sorry to ramble so much. Looking forward to the next podcast.

Carl.