The topic of this thesis is board games in Finnish public libraries. The thesis emphasizes specifically new board games and slightly touches on the old board games and mass market games preceding those. With the term ‘new board games’ this thesis is referring to the new wave of board games which originated in Germany between 1970s and 1990s. The goal of this thesis was to produce a material for independent study which would provide a library field professional or student with the necessary preparedness to work as the one responsible for board games in a library.

The most significant methods of data collection for this thesis were a literature review and an interview. The literature review goes through potential source material for this thesis. The review reports shortly about the content discussed in the most relevant source material of the thesis and about which potential source materials were found to be nonrelevant and eliminated from the list of source material. An interview of an expert was conducted for the thesis about the acquisition of board games. On top of these two smaller reviews were conducted: one on the distribution of board games in the Finnish public library network and another on the most notable Finnish board game designers and publishers.

In the first review it turns out that all Finnish public library consortiums and independent libraries not part of any consortium, except Bibliotek.ax consortium of the Åland Islands, have board games. In the second review it turns out that Finns are not notably successful as designers of new board games, except for Touko Tahkokallio. As an appendix for the 108-page material for independent study a 15-page English to Finnish board game dictionary was made.

The thesis focuses on depicting the process of conducting the material for independent study. It includes theory on a practice-based thesis, on an interview and literature review as well as on the library field, reports on conducting the interview and the dictionary, and all the three reviews made for the thesis. The material for independent study presents new board games thoroughly in the second chapter after the introduction chapter. The third chapter delves into the design process of a board game and the most notable designers, publishers, specialty stores of board games and awards. Board games as the subject of study in ludology, gaming literacy and board games in education are also covered briefly. The fourth chapter is about board game hobbyists and the communities they form. In the last chapter all information learned earlier is applied into all aspects of the library field. The chapter emphasizes especially the acquisition and descriptive metadata of board games, and practical library work.