Lending library

nzLARPS
#1

How do people feel about the idea of NZLARPS establishing a lending library?

The idea would be that the society would accumulate larp-related books or other media, and members could borrow them. Borrowing would probably be restricted to a couple of weeks, so that other members could get a chance to borrow them too.

White Wolf has published a lot of larp stuff, Interactivities Ink has published some too, some non-larp games like Once Upon a Time could be considered good training for larp, books on improvisational theatre could be relevant, etc. A lot of good material (especially free larp scenarios) could be printed off the internet and made available for lending, making it more accessible for people who can’t spend ages on the internet or print things themselves.

Members might have to pay a small fee for borrowing (a few dollars) to cover mailing the item to them and maintenance of the library. Or maybe not, depends on how the society sees the finance. Someone within the society would have to take care of the library and mail out and receive items, or in some cases give and receive items in person.

Would members use a lending library? If so, what material would you like to see in it?

#2

When I was in the AMERICA club they had a games library. Stuff went missing a lot but it still kind of worked. I think by year end about 50% of the stuff had been nicked.

My wife and I maintain a medieval library at home and we lend stuff to people. We write down who we lend stuff to so we can chase it up later, but we still lose a lot of stuff. It’s still worth it to us personally because we try to lift the level of knowledge of new people who join the group. I’d guess that about 5-10% of stuff never comes back. This is usually when people borrow a book and then drop out.

Club libraries do work, but you do lose a lot of stuff. There are a lot of people are that are inconsiderate. I’d suggest charging 10% of the value of the item would probably allow you to cover the thieft rate if the library was minded by someone who would chase people up.

Posting overdue books on diatribe could help as well. I can see more active members visiting friends who have borrowed stuff and dropped out to reclaim stuff for nzlarps.

What type of stuff would you be suggest be in the library? There are a lot of larp rules out there but the published ones I’ve seen seem to miss the point of larping completely and I’d be hesitant to reward most of the publishers by giving them money for the printed shite they produce…

#3

It’s horses for courses. Me, I’m not particularly keen on the Mind’s Eye Theatre stuff from White Wolf but some people really dig it. If there is a demand for it then I don’t see a reason not to have it.

While live combat rules are often not “published” as such, it would be nice to have a library of the rulebooks anyway. And a lot of them could be got for free. In some cases like Maelstrom, the society could just apply for the mailshot and get it for free. I think Profound Decisions (in the UK) would be happy to send it on the chance that someone else from NZ might be inspired to play Maelstrom while visiting the UK.

In other cases, rules could be printed off the internet and bound. For people designing their own larp, it’s handy to be able to flick through other people’s efforts for reference. Likewise, the Knutepunkt larp conventions in the Nordic countries publish a book of hefty larp articles every year, and they make interesting reading but are too long for most people to print or read onscreen. They are published as PDFs and could be printed and lent out. A lot of the backbone of the library could be such printed material, which is cheaper to come by than published items and can always be printed again if it goes missing.

I’ve found a couple of improvisational theatre books by Keith Johnstone really inspirational for larp. I think that books like those about related fields could make really good reading. For example, books on acting techniques, costume making, prop building, makeup, writing, layout (for creating rulebooks), set building, etc.

Obviously the list of what might be nice to have is pretty extensive, and it would probably be a matter of prioritising and slowly building it up over years.

The free stuff would be a good place to start, and second-hand purchases of some books could be an option.

#4

My concern is with Derek’s last point here - that there aren’t enough good larp books to warrant a library. Are there? What are some titles we’d keep?

What if we got some books and donated them to the public library system so they do the work for us?

#5

Derek’s right, it would have to be self-funding otherwise it would become a drain on resources. So, some kind of fee and bond system would seem appropriate.

It would seem that this would fall under the responsibility of the Gear Officer. While I’d be happy to take on oversight/reporting to the committee etc, I’m too busy to manage this, so we would need to find someone with:

a) the time

b) the storage space

Any takers ?

#6

In my opinion there are plenty, although as I’ve said a lot of them are available online. I think a lending library would also be a good additional incentive for membership.

#7

As Ryan pointed out earlier, the books don’t just have to be specifically about larp. They can cover related areas such as costuming, improvisational theatre, etc.

#8

www.freeformgames.com have some good entry-level larp games. They are easy to run and allow players to experience larp via pre-written characters and a simple ruleset.

I think I’ve got a couple of them lying around somewhere…

#9

True that. Although technically your title is Equipment Officer.

Don’t think storage would be a real issue. Being bothered to grow the library and lend/receive items would be a bit of an effort, but not compared to some of the other roles in the society.

Librarian would be a good role for someone who wants to contribute to the society in an administrative function.