Summer for thousands of people in Ann Arbor, Mich., means scavenging for hidden codes around the city and voraciously reading books to collect points. It's part of an enormously popular game that's been a triumph for the public library that runs it.
"This summer, we have 16,000 active players and more than half of them are adults," says library director Eli Neiburger. Not bad for a library that serves about 150,000 people. It's such a local sensation, one couple even got married while playing what's known in town as "The Summer Game."
The Summer Game started as a reading challenge, but it didn't work very well, Neiburger says. Kids who didn't like reading would slog through the requisite number of books to get points, then be done for the summer. Kids who read long books resented getting the same number of points as those who read short ones.
So around 2011, the library decided to pivot. "Instead of a reading game, we started a library-using game," Neiburger explained. "It includes reading, going to events, using our website, discovering all the things that the library has to offer. And it has been successful beyond our wildest dreams."
The Summer Game's design, he said, was inspired by corporate loyalty programs such as Coke Rewards. Users earn points by solving puzzles, learning about local history and exploring neighborhoods. Points can be redeemed in the library shop for T-shirts, umbrellas and other merchandise, such as a very popular stuffed plushie animal that's updated every year. (The 2025 animal is a small, bespectacled flamingo.)
"I was certainly not expecting how intensely popular it would be with adults," Neiburger added. Women in their 50s and 60s are overrepresented among Summer Game players, he noted, which reflects library user demographics. He wanted to use the Summer Game to raise awareness that the library can be used to borrow tools, art and music as well as books, and that it offers help with homework, finding jobs and provides a third space for lectures and crafting.
"Parks and Rec is not just baseball, baseball, baseball," he said. "Why should a library just be read, read, read?" The Summer Game reflects an ethos of meeting patrons where they are. And its code is open access, so any library can download it.
According to Raymond Garcia, spokesperson for the American Library Association, the popularity of the Ann Arbor District Library's Summer Game stands out, but is not singular. In an email, he said that the Anne Arundel County Public Library, in Maryland, had a participation rate of 10% of the population from the last census for its "Summer @ Your Library" program, including gameplay and event attendance, according to a library manager. Librarians in Dover, Ohio, created a Pokémon-style card-collecting program. Called "Reading Dragons and Friends," it is available for other libraries to use.
"Libraries are magical," Neiburger said. "It's something that wouldn't be allowed to be created today if it didn't already exist. And for most communities, the library is one of the most beloved government institutions. And for [local governments] to be able to turn outward and embrace their communities and find completely new audiences they didn't know they were reaching, and for those audiences to discover public services that were available to them that they didn't know about, that's magic too."
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