April 5, 2008: We Need A Librarian, Stat!

As you can see, a (nearly) three-decade accumulation of games can create quite a stack. Okay, you can't actually see the problem in this one photograph. We've got boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes.

What we really need is a system of organization, which would allow us to quickly and easily reference what we've got, where it is, what condition it's in, and so on. Unfortunately, "lay everything out in the warehouse so we can see them all at once" isn't an option. We'll be shelving them. And before we just go "alpha by publisher, and the ones that are too big for the shelves will all get stacked together somewhere," we thought we'd ask for some advice.

We don't want to re-invent the wheel, and we want the collection to be as functional as possible; certainly it would be a potential academic resource if it were searchable. So if you hold a degree in library science, or are working in a library, we'd like your recommendations. Is there a software solution, or even a set of accepted standards and practices, for the specific issue of organizing and cataloguing games? If you know something that we need to know, drop a note to Shadlyn at shadlyn@sjgames.com
-- Paul Chapman