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One of my favorite things about going to conferences is getting to meet and talk with people I normally wouldn’t get to know. I had another such experience at Midwinter when I met Leslie Morgan, First Year Experience/Education Librarian with the University of Notre Dame’s Libraries. Last year, she received the Outstanding New Librarian Award for the State of Indiana because she is an avid supporter of information literacy and diversity programs issues in academic librarianship. She is also very active promoting literacy in the community where she lives.
I met her at Midwinter because Leslie is the chair of the Research to Practice Literacy Discussion Group that hosted a panel presentation about gaming and literacy by Scott Nicholson, Julie Scordato, and myself, along with discussion from the standing room only participants. I was unfamiliar with Notre Dame’s efforts around gaming, so my ears perked up when she began talking about what the librarians there have been doing around gaming.
My favorite initiative is a program they created for first year students. Called Caching in at the Libraries, this program played on the popular hobby geocaching in an attempt to help incoming students learn more about the various libraries and services on campus.
“225 First Year Students signed up to play the game which consisted of finding 17 hidden ‘caches’ throughout Hesburgh and the branch libraries. 40 students ended up finding at least some of the caches, and 26 students were able to find all of the hidden caches. 10 of these students won iPod Shuffles, and the others won the ND ‘Shirt’.
Though the turnout for the game was not as large as we had hoped, the students who participated were very enthusiastic about it. Many of them have commented on how fun it was, and how much they enjoyed visiting all the libraries. One participant volunteered this comment: ‘I know I’ve been on campus for only 3 weeks but I probably would’ve never found out about those libraries. They are very valuable and interesting. If I had to give any evaluation of the program, I’d say continue it. Very rewarding.’ Plans are in the works to survey participants to find out ways to improve the program for next year.” [IRIS Department Newsletter
I think 225 participants is a darn good turnout for a first attempt, but their efforts didn’t stop there. In addition, the librarians hosted their first gaming night last December as an outreach activity for students.
“This year IRIS, with financial support from User Services and The First Year of Studies, hosted their first ever Game Night on December 12th and 13th - the official “reading days” before finals begin. The events took place in the library lounge and
featured coffee, cocoa, hot tea, a host of snacks, and several lo-tech games. Game Night is our effort to help relieve some of the stress of studying for finals, and it is loosely modeled on a program that has been hosted at St. Mary’s for the last few years.
No official count was taken, but somewhere between 300 and 600 students flocked to the library lounge to graze and game their troubles away. Games included Twister, Clue, Monopoly, Connect 4, Operation, Play-doh, various card games, and several coloring books and crayons. What games do students like to play? Operation and coloring were by far the most popular activities. Perhaps we had an abundance of pre-med and art students on hand!
Student’s reactions to Game Night were overwhelmingly positive. Roughly 60 students completed comment cards, and according to their responses they truly appreciated the food. Many suggested that we try to provide healthier snack alternatives such as fruit and milk. Many students liked coloring best, and one student suggested that we provide more hot guys! We’re not sure if that is in our budget, but we do hope to host Game Night during future finals weeks, and we welcome suggestions for easy and fun activities.” [IRIS Department Newsletter]
Now I’m very interested to track ND’s efforts, as it’s great to have more data from successful gaming initiatives, especially when they’re creative ideas.
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The “Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Spotlight” area at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting was very successful. We had a pretty steady stream of folks watching and playing videogames. I’d be a rich woman if I sold gaming equipment on commission at these things (hint, Nintendo, hint).
This year, the setup was in the registration hall, rather than in a booth on the exhibit floor, so we got a couple of members to help cover the area. Big thanks to Chad Haefele and Matt Roach for doing such a great job.
So great, in fact, that Chad scored a starring role in Philly.com’s coverage of the Meeting on their website (although they did spell his last name incorrectly - sorry, Chad).
Thanks to everyone who stopped by the spotlight and helped us have so much fun. We’ll see you at Annual in Anaheim when we do it again (along with the big game!).
Bonus: The paper also included an editorial about videogames in libraries by ALA President Loriene Roy.
ala,
gaming in libraries,
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The LTR update on gaming in libraries is just about done, and I’ve been reading some fascinating articles and books as background for it. I’ve been wanting to read Susan Gibbons’ 2007 book The Academic Library and the Net Gen Student and this gave me the excuse because there is a chapter devoted to online gaming. Gibbons focuses solely on Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPGs), which at first seems a little strange for an academic librarian. However, she explains what these games are, provides a little history about them, gives some information about how NetGens use them, and then brainstorms some ideas for their relevance to academic libraries. I’d argue it’s good reading for folks in *all* types of libraries.
Given some of the negative comments I’ve gotten here about gaming in libraries, including how it will devalue the MLS, I really enjoyed the following history from Gibbons.
“In the late 1700s, parents were warned to protect their children from the many dangers of free access to ‘romances, novels, and plays [which] poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth’ (Reverend Enos Hitchcock, Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, quoted in Standage 2006, 114). The early twentieth century witnessed the scourge of ‘moving pictures’ because of which ‘God alone knows how many are leading dissolute lives’ (from The Annual Report of the New York Society for the Presentation of Cruelty to Children, quoted in Standage 2006, 114). Or how about the evils of the telephone, which causes laziness, the tendency for crime caused by reading comic books, or the sins of the waltz, with its “voluptuous intertwining of the limbs, and close compressure of the bodies’ (from Times of London, 1816, quoted in Standage 2006, 114). The pattern is clear: the new form of entertainment of the younger generation is misunderstood and portrayed as the ’scourge of society’ by the preceding generations.
Brown suggests that many of us miss the importance of online gaming because we focus too tightly on the game itself: ‘So don’t just think about the games themselves–the content–but about the knowledge ecologies developing around these games–the context’ (2002, 64). The knowledge ecologies of online games include conversations, reading, writing, research, buying and selling, the formation and dissolution of partnerships and pacts, mentoring, instruction, and a host of other activities. The games do little more than provide a compelling and immersive platform for all of these social activities to occur.” (p.34)
Gibbons has clearly spent time studying and thinking about about how the reference desk could incorporate some of the best features of MMORPGs (I’m hoping I have enough room in the LTR to include a mention of these provocative ideas). She is clearly being proactive, rather than simply reactive (especially in a knee-jerk way).
If I’m going to be responsible for the end of the world because I advocate for gaming in libraries, it’s nice to know I’m in such good company.
gaming in libraries,
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mmorpgs,
susan gibbons
From Scott Nicholson, comes the call:
“Attention ALA Members!
We are hoping to go to ALA Midwinter with 100 signatures of ALA members to start a Member Interest Group on Games and Gaming. There are several initiatives across the ALA organization to look at gaming and our hope is to create a group to provide a place to talk about gaming across demographics and library types.
The charge of the interest group is:
To engage those interested in games and gaming activities in libraries and to collaborate with ALA units to support gaming initiatives and programs across the Association. Games, as defined in their broadest sense to include traditional and modern board, card, video, mobile, computer, live-action, roleplaying and miniature games, and gaming activities, including planning and running gaming programs, providing games for informal play, developing a game collection, creating games, development of information and other literacies through games and partnering with other community organizations to support gaming, will be topics for professional exploration. This group is open to all members.
If you are willing to help start this group, print out the petition below and collect signatures and member numbers of ALA members in your organization, and send it to the address on the form in the next few weeks.
The form is at http://boardgameswithscott.com/ggmig.pdf..”
ala,
american library association,
gaming in libraries,
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Judi is a student in Dominican University’s GSLIS program who is graduating in January (yay, Judi!). She’s writing her final research paper on gaming in public libraries, and she’s asking library staff offering said programs to fill out a brief survey. If you can help her, please do.
gaming in libraries,
gaminginlibraries
Karen Markey is a faculty member in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Earlier this year, she received a small grant from the Delmas Foundation to build a prototype online board game that teaches students information-literacy skills. Her game prototype is now fully operational and is being tested and evaluated by a class of 75 undergraduates at the University of Michigan.
They’ve just finished conducting interviews with student game players, but they haven’t had sufficient time to mull over interview data and analyze game play logs. They already recognize that the incentive for playing the game is a critical issue and future games must be intimately connected to a class assignment or project.
Because Karen wants to do something that would scale beyond Michigan, she is looking for research partners at public or academic libraries who are interested in building on her foundation, expanding what they have already done, and testing her approach with their library patrons. Her intent is to find libraries who want to collaborate on an IMLS National Leadership grant to host a unique instance of the game that is customized to achieving their information literacy objectives.
The game is based on the “search strategy” model that Tom Kirk and his Earlham College colleagues devised to teach undergraduates how to do library research. Karen chose the “Black Death” for the prototype game’s topic, and they are learning from their evaluation other topics that college-age students prefer.
Here are some links to learn more about their approach:
- Information on their Storygame Project generally: http://www.si.umich.edu/~ylime/storygame.html
- Playing-the-game video at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u76tW-ne-yY
- Manual for playing the game: http://ics.umflint.edu:3904/manual/manual.html
If you’re interested in partnering with Karen, you can contact her at ylime [ at ] umich.edu. I can’t wait to hear more about this project and watch it develop.
gaming in libraries,
gaminginlibraries,
imls,
information literacy,
karen markey,
university of michigan
At last month’s Internet Librarian conference, we learned that among other services for seniors, the Old Bridge Public Library in New Jersey was planning to hold a Wii tournament for older adults. Why on earth would a library do this?
Old Bridge Library Unites Generations
“You’re never too old to rock out.
Just ask the 10 Old Bridge seniors who took up Guitar Hero III as part of the Old Bridge Library’s ‘Senior Spaces’ program on Nov. 8.
Seniors, alongside teenage volunteers, tested their mettle in the ubiquitous air-guitar video game and various other games available for the Nintendo Wii gaming system as the first step in the library’s plan to make seniors more technologically proficient and to include them in what Allan Kleiman, assistant director of the Old Bridge Public Library, called the inevitable redesign of libraries.
‘We want to get them to feel they are part of the 21st century library and not left out,’ Kleiman said….
Kleiman said gaming in libraries is becoming more and more common but using the video game to slowly introduce modern technology to seniors is a relatively new idea.
‘This is a lot less frightening to play with than learning to use a computer,’ he said.
Kleiman said seniors should be able to snap a photo with a digital camera or surf the Internet or use the various other technologies surrounding them. The program, he hopes, will provide the catalyst for further learning and inclusion among that community.”…
The program bridges gaps between the ages as well, Kleiman said, allowing teenagers well versed in the ways of the Wii to teach the seniors. The two groups will find a common denominator in competition over the video games. Kleiman said the age segregation that is often found in libraries breaks down when young and old are united by the desire to win.
Kleiman said, though the seniors are undoubtedly learning from the program, they are not the only students in the room. The teenagers learn a bit about life from the seniors.
‘It gives them a whole sense of what growing older can mean,’ Kleiman said, challenging the stereotype of the elderly in nursing homes….
That does not mean the library is going the way of the video arcade. Kleiman said the foundation of the traditional library is still intact but the video games for seniors help “make them feel relevant to what people are doing.”[Home News Tribune]
I really like how the staff at OBPL are approaching this, placing it in a broader context, using video games as teaching moments and touchpoints for social interactions between groups that otherwise don’t socialize together in the library. There are so many video games now that are social activities, not just someone staring at a screen alone (not there’s something wrong with that), and as Eli Neiburger notes, libraries can make games social and add value in the same ways we do for storytime.
I think the social interactions and socialization that takes place around gaming are often overlooked as being something less valuable than when it happens around books. This is one of the reasons that (as with anything) you can’t truly understand the benefits of video games in libraries if you’ve never played them. It’s why I encourage regional organizations (like state libraries and consortia) to purchase a console in order for their member librarians to experience this. It’s difficult to have an informed discussion without the experiential learning aspect. It’s like deciding if a library should offer a book discussion without ever having read a book. Not everyone has to do this, but the folks involved in the discussion should be familiar with the subject, and they can learn from playing the same way seniors at the Old Bridge PL will learn.
gaming in libraries,
gaminginlibraries,
Old Bridge Public Library,
public libraries,
seniors
Last year I wrote the September/October issue of Library Technology Reports on Gaming in Libraries: Intersection of Services as a general overview that could help jumpstart a discussion in a library (especially with a department head or administrator). During the next few weeks, I’ll be writing an update to that issue, so I’m curious what you’d like to see in this new edition.
My intent is to broaden the discussion about gaming to include a more holistic view of the topic, beyond just video games, as well as diversifying the audience for gaming in libraries beyond just teens. So I have a pretty good idea of what I want to write about, and although I’ll have a shorter length to work with (half as long as the first one because TechSource is trying to reduce the cover price of LTR), I’d still like some input. What questions do you need answered? What do you need help explaining to others in your institution? Which areas need some further exploration?
I’m also hoping to highlight a few more case studies if there’s room. I’m particularly interested in showcasing unique gaming services offered by school and rural public libraries or services to nontraditional patrons, so please let me know if you think you’re doing something good.
Please leave a comment and share your thoughts. Thanks!
gaming in libraries,
gaminginlibraries,
library technology reports,
ltr,
techsource
You may know that Oprah’s current Book Club selection is Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, but did you know there’s also a game based on the book? Scott Nicholson has even made a video teaching how to play it.
Maybe books and games can coexist in libraries after all….
(Interesting that no libraries in WorldCat own the game. Does FRBR cover games?)
gaming in libraries,
gaminginlibraries,
oprah,
scott nicholson
It’s been quiet around here because I was lucky enough to be invited to speak to some fantastic librarians at the Hawaii Library Association Conference, so I was able to sneak in one of the most amazing vacations I’ve ever had (the pictures from which you can see here, although I’m still uploading them). Big thank yous to Dave Brier, Becky, and Vicky for inviting me and all of the help they provided for my sessions. My “talk with slides” is available on my presentations wiki as a PDF.
Hawaiian librarians rock, especially Amy, who had my favorite quote of the conference. While talking about allowing her high school students to game in the computer lab during recess, she said, “I refused to say no,” and it’s paid off big time for her. She’s made connections with the kids that she wouldn’t have otherwise made, and now some of them confide in her because of this.
Other travelers are also home now, including our Dutch friends, who have posted the final video of the Shanachie Tour. Well, of this year’s Tour, anyway. We all miss you guys very much - I sure do - but you did an amazing thing and inspired a lot of librarians here.
gaming in libraries,
gaminginlibraries,
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Game On at the Undergraduate Library
“The upcoming November 3rd event is co-sponsored by the [UIUC] Undergraduate Library and the Sousa Archive and Center for American Music and is part of the celebration of American Music Month. The evening will focus on music in gaming and will include speakers from the Department of Music as well as industry experts from Volition, a growing gaming company in Champaign. The event will also introduce a game created by campus researchers (Musiverse).
Gaming at the library - come to play, come to learn. Game On!” [@ Your Service]
gaming,
gaming and libraries,
gaming in libraries,
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From Scott Nicholson:
“I’m a professor at Syracuse University, and we just got 5 IMLS grants for librarians interested in becoming LIS faculty members. Why is this relevant in LibGaming? Because if you come to Syracuse, you’d be welcome to work with me on research about gaming in libraries! Of course, you could also work with many other folks, as we’ve got a lot of interesting things going on.”
There’s much more in the full press release - iSchool Secures Grant to Fund Five Future Library Professors.
gaming,
gaming in libraries,
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scott nicholson
There were many reasons I hosted the ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium this past July, not the least of which was to share with others the breadth of gaming services libraries can offer. The fact that I got to meet some of my heroes (like Henry Jenkins and James Paul Gee), as well as meet new people doing interesting things around gaming, was rich and tasty gravy.
Two of those people were Mark Engelbrecht and Martin House from the Public Library of Charlotte Mecklenburg County, who received a $69,000 LSTA grant to study gaming for adults last year. There’s a reason we talk so much about the kids and the teenagers when it comes to gaming in libraries, but we can’t forget that there are valid gaming services for 20somethings, 30somethings, families, parents, boomers, seniors, and pretty much everyone else who enjoys games. So their session at the Symposium was high on my list to hear but as it turns out, when you host an event like this, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll actually get to see much of the presentations. So I missed almost all of their talk, and unfortunately we didn’t have video of it. There is audio, which you can grab to listen to here, and I highly recommend you do that.
But now, you can also read (and subscribe) to Martin House’s new blog Technaeum, where he will be posting excerpts of their research and data from the grant. I’m thrilled about this, because it solidifies 2007 as the first year we started getting actual numbers of any kind surrounding gaming in libraries, and just like Scott Nicholson’s data, PLCMC’s numbers are fascinating.
Gaming and Libraries: Reference Ain’t Dead
“As an indication that reference really ‘ain’t’ dead, I would like to share some research with you from an LSTA Innovations Grant. The library received $69,000 to create gaming programs for adults and study the impact of these events in terms of their library use. What we found is that the single biggest reason patrons cited for coming to the library was reference, or an informational need….
…libraries today are still faced with the age old charge, being ‘The People’s University.’ If my research is any indication of this, libraries are more needed than ever due to people’s needs to have knowledgeable professionals guide them through the world of information overload - oh and bad information too boot.
There is also a very good indication that patron who attended the gaming programs frequented the library more in subsequent months.”
Be sure to read the rest of Martin’s post and to check back or subscribe to his blog, because he will be posting about their research regularly. Thanks, Martin - this is a huge contribution to the profession.
gaming,
gaming and libraries,
gaming in libraries,
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I just returned from giving a presentation about gaming and libraries to a crowd of enthusiastic librarians at the NetSpeed Conference in Calgary. I love doing presentations for and talking with Canadian librarians, because I think they do a much better job of pooling resources and working together than we do in the U.S. I’ll be interested to see if they apply that same effort to gaming (I’m betting they will).
For those NetSpeeders who may be visiting here for the first time, welcome! Please feel free to leave a comment about the presentation or gaming in general. The slides will be available at http://theshiftedlibrarian.pbwiki.com/ later today.
I also want to thank the conference organizers for making a donation to the Lois Hole Library Legacy Program in my name. What a great idea. Yeah, Canadian librarians rock hard.
canadian librarians,
gaming in libraries,
gaminginlibraries,
netspeed,
the alberta library
This time it’s in the Dallas Morning News and the article is called Video Games Encourage Teens to Check Out Libraries.
The good news: We learn that the Forth Worth Public Library is creating a room dedicated to gaming. Can’t wait to learn more about that!
The bad news: Yet another newspaper story that lets someone (this time a professor at the University of Maryland) get away with sweeping generalizations about gaming. Melanie Killen claims, “a vast majority of the games have negative content and the consequences can be destructive, including increased impulsivity, aggressive behavior and shorter attention spans,” without providing any proof at all.
Whether that’s her fault or the newspaper’s, let’s just nip this in the bud right now in case you encounter this argument at your own library.
First of all, 85% of the games sold in 2006 were rated E (for Everyone), E+10 (ages 10 and up), or T (for Teen). That means only 15% of video games sold in 2006 where rated for adults, so that’s hardly a “vast majority.” Only 4 of the top 20 games sold in 2006 were rated M (Mature) (PDF). That would be 1/5, which means the “vast majority” of games sold were actually appropriate for kids and teenagers.
Second of all, let’s define what we mean by “destructive” and “aggressive behavior,” because as video games have become more popular, youth violence has actually dropped, despite those stories that grab all the headlines.
Third, “impulsivity” and “shorter attention spans” can be attributed to many things, not just video games. If I’m not mistaken, these arguments were made against television forty years ago, so it’s not like this is something new and it’s not like you can blame video games as the master evil behind these problems. In fact, one wonders if shorter, less complex newspaper stories that fail to provide facts or links for further information or, you know, evidence/data/research might contribute to that trend, too.
What’s really ironic is that Killen is later quoted as saying, ” ‘There is a concern in our society about the preparation of the next workforce in terms of reading and math and science skills,’ she said. ‘We should be doing everything we can to facilitate that, and I think that allowing video games to go in libraries is a bad signal.’ ” If you run into this misguided assumption yourself, you can point folks to this report or this report or this report (PDF), which discuss how gaming can help with exactly those things.
The worst part? They cite a figure for the number of libraries offering console or PC gaming programs that is flat out wrong, all the more curious since the summary of the survey is available online (PDF). Had they bothered to point to it from the article, they might have gotten it right. Sadly, the DMN doesn’t allow comments or trackbacks, so their readers will never know just how wrong the paper got this story. Luckily, the rest of us do.
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A few things I’ve wanted to blog about in-depth but am just throwing out there for now.
educational gaming commons,
gaming,
gaminginlibraries,
researchquest,
videogames,
wii
And if you can see this, then you’re seeing the new version of TSL on WordPress. Please leave a comment if you encounter any problems with RSS feed or the site itself. Thanks!
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glls2007,
wordpress