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Chat: Summer Game Shop, Opening Super Soon!

by mariah

Since today's Friday, you probably already know it's a BADGE DROP DAY. Hooray!

But WAIT, there's ANOTHER reason to be excited for this evening -- tonight is the GRAND OPENING of the SUMMER GAME SHOP!

You've been racking up those Summer Game points, and soon (around 6pm tonight), you'll have a chance to see just what AWESOME AADL SWAG you can score! We've got things for indoor and outdoor adventures, stuff you can wear, and stuff you can snuggle!

In the spirit of awesome SG swag, what have some of your favorite shop premiums and prizes from past Summer Game years been? Do you have swag you still use all the time? Something that you loved to pieces?

Chime in!

UPDATE: The 2013 Summer Game Shop is NOW OPEN for business!

Comments

Submitted by sdunav on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 12:12pm

The Axis t-shirts are family favorites (more so than the regular tan AADL shirts). And I still love my book bag.

Submitted by cherylo on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 12:57pm

I love and use the pair of coffee mugs regularly. (I have fond memories of the Lobster Butter coffee itself.)
A 2012 messenger bag does regular duty by serving as my bag-of-roleplaying, holding dice, an RPG manual (currently Babylon 5), and my character information and notes.
My secret shop purchase of flower art hangs in my cube at work; I have received compliments on it from co-workers.
I have not yet used the Motawi tiles, another secret shop purchase, for more than simple display but I hope to put them in a new backsplash in my kitchen at some point.
My younger daughter uses the green backpack I purchased...it was too small for me in the shoulders ( minor sadface ), but she loves it so that's cool.
The AADL water bottles (I'm not sure if they were 2012 or 2011) are our backups, but they do get use.
I missed out on the umbrellas last year, and would really love it if there were more of them this year!
And finally, the 2011 magical bag gets constant and regular use, especially during the summer. It's starting to show stress/wear on the bottom from many heavy loads of library materials, so if a replacement or upgrade appears this year, that will make me very happy,

messenger bag for rpg stuff, that is awesome. Good to see it all gets good use. The umbrellas were/are great. My kids broke one but I got two because I knew this would happen. I also now know whom I am working against to get secret shop stuff this year, good luck to you.

Submitted by yaldah on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 1:25pm

I have an aadl water bottle that I've been using every time I need a water bottle. Just a few weeks ago a sibling of mine accidently dropped it on some rocks, so now it's dented. A new bottle will be the first thing I buy!
I also wasn't able to get an umbrella, although I REALLY wanted one. More of those would be great!

Submitted by Lmd3577 on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 1:57pm

This is one of my fav parts of the summer reading program. I have used the backpack and umbrella reguallary since I got them last year. I can't wait to see what they have avaible this year yea.

Submitted by seadocks on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 2:34pm

I got tons of stuff last year, mainly due to the fact that I was checking out the stuff for all five people in my family. This year everyone has their own account and the points will be a bit harder to come by, but we have already been to events and all the branches so we have started off great. I use the mugs every single day since their arrival in my house. I used the coffee press once and then I got lazy and went back to the regular one. The umbrella has served well and the bags are always with me at the Traverwood branch, they travel in threes. My kids got great use out of the backpacks and the messenger bag is still is use. I think the thing I use the most that I got from the summer game was the ability to use the website better, search the catalog better, and find out about new media and books I was not aware of before. We are a family of heavy readers and the amount of non-fiction I have checked out mainly because of the contest has been great. I love the summer game and now I need to get back to finding clues and badges I am running behind.

Ok, guys, I'm starting to publish items in the shop. You won't be able to add them to your cart until closer to 6 PM, but you can get a sneak peek as we load it up! Stay tuned!

Hi @eli! Does the "FINAL STOCK" mention on the tee shirts listings mean there will be other tee shirt designs at some later point and you're clearing out the stock first? I love that the current tees are tie-dye compatible in design and color and would be interested in more information if my conjecture holds true.

Also...deluxe messenger bags in lime (my favorite color!) and picnic items: squee!

@seadocks, I'm not sure if there's going to be a secret shop or not this year, but your comment about knowing the competition made me smile. :)

I completely love what you said about the library game making you a better website user and searcher! I am sure that was one of the aims of the game design, along with boosting circulation and attendance at library events, and it is good to see it mentioned.

There won't be a secret shop this year. We're actively trying to design a shop that discourages looting instead. =)

We do have some plans for remaining secret shop tokens, so stay tuned for that, but we are definitely phasing out the secret shop. We are not planning to restock t-shirts this year, the stock we have is what there is, but when we restock tshirts next summer we will certainly keep in mind all the great stuff we saw players do with the nice plain shirts! Some of the tie dye ones are just killer! So, stay tuned gang!

-[:eli]

Submitted by deokeun choi on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 4:22pm

on the green earbud case thing, it says that it is 5000 SG points in the description, but then on the bottom it says it's 8000 SG pts.
?????????

It looks like the shop price inconsistency on the earbuds has been corrected.

Also, I forgot that the Bear from 2012 (SG Bearpants) is also at work along with a stuffie toy I made at a library event last year and some other plushies (pink decrypted dragon from Erfworld webcomic, a Webkinz frog from when my daughter was into Wekbinz, a dozen smiling plushie flowers from Looney Labs, makers of the card game Fluxx. Yes, I am a nerd. You knew that already.) I will have to get a puppy to keep them company. :)

Submitted by leehannah on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 4:40pm

I loved the umbrella, and I can't wait to see the new things they are going to have this year! I was a little disappointed with the chocolate, but it was good ;)

Submitted by jangmikyoung on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 4:42pm

I really wanted the coffee maker last year, but some of these items were out of stock in like 5 minutes right after they were restocked!!!

Submitted by marielle on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 5:19pm

My absolute favorite thing were the rfid tags. I got one to put on my card and one that was on a keychain. I still use mine from two years ago (although they don't work from as far away anymore).

the rfid tag was my FAVORITE prize! I still use mine ALL the time! Please bring them back this year for my friends. I also LOVE the tote bags, messenger bags and umbrellas. The chocolate is wonderful, but only 'used' once :-)

The AARFID tags won't be returning. Those of you who have ones that still work are in the lucky minority! Most of them died in the first few months. However, we do hope to add a nice barcode key fob of some sort that would have similar utility, but we're not sure if that will happen this summer or next! Stay tuned and happy shopping!

-[:eli]

Submitted by wampishing on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 5:49pm

I enjoy how this thread went suddenly silent upon the shop opening. We're all swarming the shop, aren't we?

Submitted by crazypockets on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 5:51pm

I love the book bags! They are really sturdy and have held up well. I hope there are umbrellas again this year....sad I missed out on those. :)

Submitted by cherylo on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 6:10pm

I am one of the lucky few whose RFID tag on my magic bag still works. I have a charmed life indeed! It shouldn't be too hard for an enterprising maker-player to make a library-card bar code to go on a library key fob or caribiner, which would work just about as well. :)

However, when I screw the top of the sipper on really tight to prevent water from leaking out, there's a sort of vacuum that occurs. so the little thing at the top of the sipper doesn't really work.
For cleaning out the white bottles, does shaking make sure it is 100% clean?

Submitted by jangmikyoung on Sat, 07/06/2013 - 8:18am

I was a little disappointed, because it took a fairly long time to restock the items last year.. but hopefully they'll fix that!

@dwliu90 : RFID stands for Radio Frequency IDentification. The tags in the books at the library that allow you to scan checkouts by waving them over the scanner are RFID. The scanner sends a radio signal to the tag, as I understand it, and the power gleaned from receiving the scanner signal gives the tag enough power to send back its own radio signal with identification information. You can think of it as kind of like how an echo in a canyon can tell you the shape (or identity) of the canyon if you know how to analyze it. Or think of it as a low-powered EZ pass transponder, if you know about that.

Two summers ago, some library game participants became beta testers for library card RFID tags by purchasing the "magical bag" prize premium, which was a tote bag and caribiner with a custom built RFID and barcode "library card" on a square of cardboard. Apparently RFID tags both for magic bag cards and for books are failing at a high, or at least higher than expected, rate, and are relatively expensive to replace when they do fail.

@eli, I am wondering, do the automatic scanners record the *method* of scanning for library cards and materials (optical barcode vs RFID)? I bet those are useful and interesting stats if they do.

Will there be stuff in the supreme packages that are sold out? Like if there aren't anymore earbuds or something, but the supreme package includes earbuds, will there still be earbuds in it?

My son used the backpack and baseball cap the whole school year. My daughter loved the bear and was happy to see she had enough points to get the puppy now. I don't want to admit to how many library products we have in our house - I think we may have gotten a little too obsessed with the game and points. But I agree with something someone said earlier, I have gotten really comfortable with the library website, and now am discovering interesting things in the catalog, helping my kids find research information, etc. because of the summer game.

I almost feel greedy asking, but can Street Quest or Points-O-Matic points be used in the summer game shop? I have to decide how to budget my points. Thank you AADL and the Friends of the AADL!

Submitted by graceliu on Mon, 07/08/2013 - 10:10am

People keep mentioning a secret shop and that it isn't open this year........what was it?

I'm back from NY - wow, go away for 5 days and drop from 4th to 11th on the Staff board. I've got my work cut out for me. :)

I read the article too and I, too, find the results rather interesting and wonder where general fiction, fantasy, and science fiction fall in their findings. I also find it interesting that more extroverts like to read history/science/etc. I've got to be one of the most introverted people I know (seriously, outside of work, I don't have a lot of social interaction) and those are some of my favorite genres. Interesting.
But yet I totally understand the correlations they found between those who like to read about art and poetry liking other similar types of media such as classical music. Very interesting article. Thanks for sharing, Cheryl!

The AADL crafting projects are fun.... I attended the origami one yesterday. There was a folding frenzy as people tried to finish making the parts necessary to assemble the completed project:)

Submitted by jmb.mlis on Wed, 07/31/2013 - 11:53pm

My dad loved getting the tool caddy bag as a birthday gift last year and my boyfriend loves his play.aadl t-shirt and hat. Thanks for offering great items I can give to my family members as gifts :)

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