The toy library in Nyon offers a wide variety of toys and games for young and old. The perfect activity for those long days at home!
The first game library was created in 1934 in Los Angeles. Europe’s first one was in Copenhagen and Switzerland’s first one was not until 1972 in Münchenstein. The toy library in Nyon was opened in 1978 and is run by volunteers.
It’s for everyone! Parents looking for early learning toys for their baby, musical instruments, puzzles and costumes. There is a large variety of board games available for children from the age of 2 to 102! The “Ludotheque” – the French term for a toy library – also caters to company game evenings, the UAPE (after-school care) as well as giant games for parties or birthdays.
You can register very easily at the shop or on the website. Rentals are yours for a month and there are 3 subscriptions to choose from: Basic, Mini and Maxi that range in price from CHF30.- to CHF90.- per year, depending on volume and frequency 🙂
The “novelty” aspect is appealing to children (and adults) and the concept allows you and your children to try out a variety of different things every month and find what works best for your family. A yearly subscription and the rental costs of the games are much lower than purchasing them, which are often far to space-consuming for most of us anyway.
Games are rented and re-rented so they get a good usage rather than living in dark cupboards for months and years before being thrown away or painfully given away.
The library does not sell any games although if they receive games that cannot be used, they are made available to the members generally once a year in November in a barter sale at low prices (although unfortunately last year’s one was canceled). At a barter, anyone can drop in games they want to sell and then get their money back at the end of the sale day.
A membership as a gift voucher is also available for those always on the lookout for original gifts!
The arrival of COVID-19 required some adaptation, people can now order games and collect them at a predefined time for example.
They still remain open, but are limited in terms of people and are currently asking people to come alone to make a selection and stay as short a time as possible to leave room for others too. Games are also “quarantined” meaning that there are 72-hour gaps between exchanges.
Post COVID restrictions the Ludothèque is hoping to restart the monthly board game night’s again.
Get in touch with them for questions or more information directly, the several members of the committee speak English and they are happy to help you.
