vindy.com | Boardman library hosts monthly puzzle swap

Friday, December 19, 2014

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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Participants filed into the Boardman library's meeting room before the start of the monthly puzzle swap event.

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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Participants in the Boardman library's monthly puzzle swap looked through the puzzles they wanted to take which were laid out on seven tables.

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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.A woman tried to decide which puzzle she wanted to take home during the monthly puzzle swap event at the Boardman library.

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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Development director of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County Debbie Liptak explained the rules of the puzzle swap before it began at the Boardman library.

The Boardman library hosted its monthly puzzle swap on Nov. 12 that allows area residents to turn in unwanted puzzles and exchange them for new ones to do.

The library has been hosting the event the second Wednesday of every month for the last three years.

“We have a lot of seniors who participate, a lot of people from nursing homes,” development director of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County Debbie Liptak said. “They take them and do them, then they bring them back again.

“It was friend of the library who said, ‘I think it would be a great idea.’ I said, ‘All right, let’s try it.’ All the leftover puzzles go to the book store in [the] Poland [library] and we sell them for very cheap. On Thursday mornings when I come back from the puzzle swap, there’s always people waiting to buy up the puzzles.”

The puzzle swap is done at the Boardman library due to it being the central location in the library system, thus making it easier for people to travel there.

Each attendee of the event brought up to six puzzles and left them on a table outside the Boardman library’s meeting room. Liptak then took the puzzles and put them on tables in the meeting room while the attendees waited in the children’s room next door.

Liptak said there have been as many as 55 people who attended the puzzle swap in the past, with 22 coming on Nov. 12. Liptak ended up filling seven tables with puzzles.

With that done, she went into the children’s room and explained the rules of the swap, which allowed them to take home an equal number of puzzles that they brought. She cautioned against any fighting over the same puzzle and said to make sure any puzzle brought in is complete and in good condition.

Liptak then allowed them to enter the meeting room and let them loose to grab puzzles they wanted.

“People who do puzzles may have two or three puzzles going at the same time,” she said. “It’s a favorite pastime. There are people in the summer time who have tables out on their porch and they’re doing puzzles. They like their puzzles. The most popular puzzles are the 500s [pieces] because they can get them done fast.”