Many librarians are proud experts when it comes to recommending books. The art of finding the perfect game requires many of the same skills, but throws in challenges of its own.
A panel of librarians and a game café owner shared suggestions for the emerging practice of players’ advisory at “For Every Player Their Game: Winning Strategies for Recommending Games,” a June 29 session of the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2026 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago.
“Players’ advisory is simply connecting people with games they may need or want or enjoy,” explained Carl DiNardo, research and instruction librarian at University of South Florida in Tampa. But translating it into library service isn’t quite so simple.
Carolyn Vibbert, library media programs and research specialist at Prince William County (Va.) Schools, noted that while a book’s cover and summary usually makes it relatively easy for a librarian to sell it to a potential reader, “it’s a lot harder to be a poser when you’re trying to pitch a game to someone.”
“Sometimes you want to recommend a game not based on its look, but on something more esoteric like the mechanics of a game,” agreed Molly Porter, manager of the Dutchtown branch of Ascension Parish (La.) Library. That requires a higher level of familiarity with a specific title than is necessary for readers’ advisory.
But no person can be intimately familiar with every game. “We don’t expect all our staff to know all the games,” said Dana Buxmaum, owner of Critical Grind Board Game Café in Shorewood, Illinois. Instead, she wants staff to “find a game or 10 that you are passionate about that you can share with customers.”
The panel offered several options for filling in the gaps. Buxbaum holds monthly game nights with staff to teach games so they can explain them better. She also provides information in a Google spreadsheet and the café’s point-of-sale system.
Porter recommended websites like BoardGameGeek for information and Board Game Arena to play board games online. Vibbert added conventions and parent gamer blogs to the mix, while Buxbaum suggested the Dice Tower YouTube channel and TikTok content that shows people playing games or demonstrating their mechanics.
DiNardo warned against relying too much on a game’s subject matter, particularly when a teacher or professor is looking for a game that can be used to teach a subject. “There are games with themes for almost anything you can think of,” he said, and some games, like Votes for Women, are historically accurate and can teach about a topic. But for many games the learning is metacognition—using game mechanics and reflecting upon them to develop strategy and problem-solving skills.
Effective players’ advisory also requires observational skills, the presenters said. Vibbert recalled one student who took it particularly hard when he lost a game; she was able to steer him toward cooperative examples and “press your luck” style games where he was able to make his own decisions and success wasn’t dependent on other players.
Porter described a teen patron who joined her Dungeons & Dragons campaign. “They were good with the mechanical stuff, but they really ran with more role-playing elements.” She steered him to Snake Oil, where portraying characters (namely a zany salesperson) is central to the game.
