Murder in the Library

"Murder in the Library: Getting Off to the Right Start" is a presentation by Amy W. Boykin and Alicia Willson-Metzger at the 2004 Virginia Library Association's annual conference in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Quoting from the program, "In a cooperative venture with the Office of Student Life, Library staff helped define the moment for a freshman orientation group visiting the Library for the first time, giving them the opportunity to explore, experience, and examine the Library's physical collections."

The Event

Using four Library staff members and four student workers, plus a former Library staff member, the Murder Mystery introduced almost 50 students to the Library. All of the clues were in place, the lights were off (except for the emergency lighting), and the staff was ready.

Beginning at 9pm on the Thursday evening of Welcome Week (the week before classes start), the students began arriving and presenting their tickets for entrance which they had picked up earlier that day. The students were directed to a small open area that was well-stocked with punch and cookies. As the group grew, so too did the group of RAs (Resident Assistants, upper classmen) who were going to guide the students in their search to solve the Mystery. Everyone mixed and mingled until ...

At precisely 9:28pm, a loud scream was heard. Everything went quiet, and the Library staff member giving instructions was heard to say that someone must have stumbled over the body. At any rate, everyone was brought away from the food into a darker part of the Library and divided into ten groups of five freshmen each. The scene was set, see the Butler's script in The Details, and the groups were sent off to find the identity of the murderer.

After locating and interpreting the clues, each group turned in their answers at the Detective Desk. When all the groups were finished, the winners were announced and prizes awarded for quickest and most accurate answers. Everyone left and the Library staff pronounced the event a success.

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The Details

General instructions - giving an overview of the staff needs and directions (Word document)

Script for the Butler (Word document)

Directions for those providing clues at the circulation desk, the reference desk, and the photocopiers (Word document)

List of sample clues - used in 2004 for Group 1 (Word document)

Final clue for each group - the Confession; the murder was revealed in the information (cut and pasted) into the Library's letterhead paper. (Word document)

Equipment: flashlights, clues (10 sets of 5, placed in books, journals, and file folders), staff to assist teams, refreshments and prizes, and entry tickets

Periodical/journal clues were paperclipped into print editions of journals with dummy titles and accurate citations. Book clues were taped onto dummy blocks and accurately shelved by call number within the general book collection. Book clues were also unsupressed in the online catalog for that evening only. The rest of the clues at the circulation desk, photocopiers, and reference desk were kept in color-coded file folders.

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What Needs Improving

Because of construction and a short timeframe, here are several ideas for improving the Mystery for next time.

• More flashlights - we only had four this year - at least one per team
• Spooky music or fog machine?
• Make the scream louder - microphone?
• Give the butler a microphone, too
• Hand out original packets, instead of letting the groups find them on the chairs
• Plan the ticketing ahead of time - have tickets ready early, with accurate date and time
• Allow more time for planning and distributing clues

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The Bibliography: aka The Inspiration

Carlton College's Gould Library has an excellent web page detailing "How to Host a Murder Mystery in Your Library" and it inspired us to try our own Murder Mystery. (http://www.carleton.edu/campus/library/reference/workshops/MurderMystery.html)

University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh has a Murder in the Stacks Mystery as part of their "Odyssey 2004" welcome to First-Year Students. This is what helped us see that we could limit the number of attendees - 50 worked well for us. See the blurb at 9:15pm on Friday of that week. (http://www.uwosh.edu/odyssey/openingdayfirstweekend.htm)

The summer program manual from 2002, no longer available on the web, was provided by the Alabama Public Library. Its Library Murder Mystery game/skit was adapted from the Charleston County Public Library (South Carolina) and credits Cathy Christmann of Charleston with the idea. This source helped us with our clues, the naming of the suspects and victim, and the idea of a crime scene on site. This manual also included a mystery form for participants to use for recording their answers.

Other useful print resources have been collected in this Eclectic Bibliography. (Word document)