We started by assembling an advisory panel of experts who have worked with selecting games for settings such as schools, libraries, and hospitals.  Stephen Conway, Donald Dennis, Brian Mayer, Kathleen and Mercury worked with Scott Nicholson, Oscar Gorbet, and Alex Kulenkamp to identify a set of criteria.   The goal was to create criteria that would allow us to rank board and card games in order to identify a short list of games to recommend  to someone wanting to start or fund a small collection of games for others to play. 

Here are those criteria, along with the weighting for each:

• Robustness (30%). The game is playable if some of the pieces are components are missing, and/or replacement components are easy to create with found objects and paper. The pieces are durable.
• Explainability(30%). The game can be explained in a short period of time with few rule exceptions, or can be easily learned by players. The rulebook is well-written and easy for players to use to answer their own rule questions.
• Engagement(20%). Players are regularly engaged in gameplay with little downtime
• Table Presence(10%). The game experience appears interesting to attract the interest of library patrons. When there are people in the game, there is a diverse representation of characters.
• Overhead(10%) – The game is easy to set up, to verify all the essential components are there, and to pack back into the box afterward.