Bronx senior centers have joined local libraries in a collaboration that will allow centers to use their local libraries to further enrich programming for seniors through activities, book clubs, and even video games.

“It’s awesome,” said Qiawni Micou, a social worker with the Mosholu Montefiore Senior Center in Norwood. “Seniors want to be active so anything to get them out and with the community is great.”

The New York Public Library (NYPL), the Department for the Aging (DFTA) and Bronx senior center directors all gathered earlier this fall for a meeting at the Bronx Library Center on East Kingsbridge Road to discuss this collaboration.

“By 2030, older New Yorkers will constitute 20 percent of the population and baby boomers will outnumber school-aged children for the first time ever,” said Caryn Resnick, a DFTA deputy commissioner. “The seniors of today will want different services than the seniors of tomorrow.”

Resnick said that the primary goal for DFTA and senior centers citywide is identifying solutions that will result in older generations remaining active in the community. The Bronx has emerged as “the lab” in which they have started this approach.

One innovative approach mentioned in the meeting was the introduction of Nintendo Wii video game systems to senior centers citywide.

The Wii system, known for its interactive game play, allows users to mimic various movements as if they were doing the actual activity. Rather than pressing a button to swing the baseball bat, for example, the gamer takes the remote and performs a full swing as if they were holding a real bat. This makes game play with the system a form of physical exercise. The ability to simulate bowling, baseball and tennis are just a few activities the system allows seniors to do.

The DFTA and the NYPL will continue discussions on their collaboration in the coming months, but already the two agencies recently began library card drives in the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island. David Ferriero of the New York Public Library stated that the NYPL had since registered 521 new seniors.