Library Lovers
Library Lovers playing cards published by Word Nerd Games, 2016.
Published by Word Nerd Games and funded through Kickstarter in 2016. The author is “a writer and former librarian from the UK who loves toys, games and messing about. I write children's books for a living but often found my creative mind wondering towards games design”. For more information see here►
The 54 cards are illustrated with vintage images from the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s used to promote and advertise books and libraries to the public and encourage recreational reading.
Above: Library Lovers playing cards published by Word Nerd Games and funded through Kickstarter, 2016.
By Peter Burnett
United Kingdom • Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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