A Quick Look at Harvard’s Houghton Library Board Games Collection Spanning Nearly 400 Years
Hardvard’s Houghton Library reportedly has a location identified as “Z closet” (or Z-closet) for items that spatially don’t fit in other locations or thematically are on their own. This happens to be where a number of the library’s board games – one dating back to 1678 – are stored, some shown in this post for the Harvard Gazette.
Technology has come a long way since the first gamers invented dice thousands of years ago. But for some, the convenience of cellphone apps and the immersive thrill of VR are still no substitute for a sociable competition around the table.
The enduring charm of tabletop games can be explored in a historical collection stored in a closet at Houghton Library. Most offer a window into cultural themes and attitudes peculiar to their era, but a few of the games are surprisingly timeless in tone and design. Take the sardonic humor of an 1863 role-playing card game called The Draft Enforced that parodies drill sergeants, or the minimalist design of a 19th-century paper chessboard sized for travel.
Librarian James Capobianco recently displayed highlights of the collection for the Gazette, and we’ve included call numbers for those who’d like to see the games for themselves. Houghton has even scanned a few of the boards so they can be used. Game night, anyone?
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
