On July 17, 2006, the Danville Public Library approved
a new strategic plan. One of the main issues that came out of the
plan is the need for better outreach to our teen population. One of the
objectives we have implemented is holding several gaming nights with
amazing success.
Our first Teen Video Gaming Nights were held on
April 3 and April 5. On
our first night, we brought in 50 students, and on the second night, we
saw 70. Most of the teens were boys—a difficult group to attract
to the library. Some hadn’t been in the library before. Some
hadn’t played either Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero before;
some were experts and brought their own guitars—and friends to compete
with.
On the first night, we had two gaming stations
operating simultaneously—Dance
Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero II. The DDR contest was finished
first and participants then joined in with those playing Guitar Hero.
On the second night, many teens returned, bringing
more of their friends. Based
on the suggestions we had received from the previous event, we implemented
a bracket system for the Guitar Hero II station so that the competition
felt more like a tournament. One boy, when told that all the first
games would be songs from the Easy category, said, “I don’t
know if I can play the Easy ones—I’m too fast!” Based
on the popularity of Guitar Hero II, we decided to have both stations
run the same game with the DDR competition concluding the evening.
Members of our Teen Advisory Board served as emcees
for the two games. Teen
Services Committee members from the staff—Mike Boedicker, Sue Daugherty,
Vonna Bley and me with help from Children’s Department assistant
Lisa Abdelghani—set up the room and the refreshments, kept score,
handled technical problems, handled crowd control, and referred questions
about the rules to the teen members. We gave $10 Chamber Dollars
to four winners in each game.
We are still tallying the results from the questionnaire that the
teens filled out, but the majority heard about the events from their
friends; over half of the respondents already used the library (which means that
nearly half were attracted to the library by this event!); and nine
expressed an interest in serving on the Teen Advisory Board. One teen asked
me if we were going to hold the video gaming nights every Tuesday
and Thursday.
On the concluding night of the event, one of the
mothers told us that she’d be happy to volunteer. She said that she takes her kids
to different events and activities like ours because she wants them
to have different experiences and she “didn’t want to lose
them to the streets.” |
