Eva K. Bowlby Library hosts a weekly Mahjong Club on Wednesdays. Andrew Novak, a circulation clerk at the library who helps facilitate the club, described the weekly meetings.

“The mahjong club meets down in our community room which is connected to our children’s room, and they meet every Wednesday from roughly around 1 p.m. to 4 p.m,” Novak said.

Mahjong is a game from China that relies on matching symbols on a series of tiles for points.

“As a player, you are trying to get the tiles you need, while passing off the ones you don’t,” Novak said. “The goal is, let’s say it’s a set of three similar tiles and a run of 1-2-3-4, you are trying to get that before anyone else in the game, so you can lay your tiles down and get your points.”

The club was originally started when some community members were inquiring about a place to play in the library.

“We actually had someone approach us awhile back, asking if they and a couple of friends could use a room to play mahjong,” Novak said. “They wanted to teach their friends how to play because they were looking for more people to play with, and we actually purchased a couple Mahjong sets for people to use in the library.”

The club has been steadily growing from the original four to occasionally up to seven or nine people coming to play.

“We routinely get more people coming in,” Novak said. “It’s a fluctuating group who come in to play. Some days, we have more. Some days, we have less, but more people are learning about it and are coming to learn how to play.”

According to Novak, the club welcomes all skill levels, from people who have never played before to seasoned players.