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If you want a glimpse into one possible future for LIS education, look no further than Scott Nicholson’s free Gaming in Libraries course, running now on a computer near you. It makes use of a fascinating mix of tools that together let anyone participate at whatever level works for them, even after this iteration ends.
Now he’s one-upping himself and running a 30-day, introductory course about gaming in libraries. Syracuse and WISE consortium students can take the course for credit, but anyone, anywhere can watch the daily video lectures he’s posting on YouTube and discuss them in the class community on ALA Connect (you have to join the community to see the discussions, but anyone, including non-ALA members, can do that). The syllabus is available as a Google doc, and you can even download the videos from the Internet Archive to take them on the go. So far, the videos have ranged between about 5-17 minutes, so they’re easy to watch and digest.
He’s already up to video lecture #10 (I’ve been remiss in not posting about this before now), and you can join the other 66 participants in the Connect community to discuss your thoughts about the content, including some videos by guest lecturers. In fact, this is one of the most active communities on Connect right now since it’s such a hot topic.
In fact, now is a good time to jump in, because starting with lecture #9 (posted yesterday), Scott is breaking new ground by offering new insight and specific strategies for planning gaming programs in libraries.
“This is a new conceptual model I’ve developed over the last few months on how to look at the library gaming experience, and then I use that model to create five gaming archetypes, into which you can classify all (I hope) library gaming experiences. The archetypes then form a bridge between library goals and specific game choices.
Watch for yourself and see what you think. Whether you’re new to the topic or an expert advising others, the new model alone is worth it (I love that it’s called SNAKS). With a total cost of $0, you’ve got nothing to lose, and if your library’s gaming program is relatively young, the content from the course will be invaluable for you. I hope other LIS professors begin teaching Scott’s model when they talk about gaming, and libraries that use it should report back about how it works so that we can begin building resources around it. Luckily, Scott is writing a book that will include information about the model, but I’m sure he’ll be reporting further research around it via the Library Game Lab.
For the past two years, Dr. Scott Nicholson at the Syracuse iSchool has conducted an annual census to help us learn more about libraries offering gaming services. I can’t tell you how valuable that data has been when I get calls from reporters, so I’m hoping you’ll help us continue to build this archive of information.
If your library offered any type of gaming program last year (board games, video games, computer games, etc.), pleasefill out the survey before it closes on May 31. It’s open to all types of libraries, and Scott will publish the results for everyone, just as he’s done for the last two years.
If you’re in the Chicagoland area, I hope you’ll make some time to come play mini golf at Downers Grove PL this Sunday, March 8, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. It’s a fundraiser, so adults can play the whole course for just $5, while kids age 15 and younger can play for $3. Putt your best and if you do well, you might find yourself in a playoff round at 4:15 p.m. Experience the stacks in a whole new way!
I thought I had blogged about National Gaming Day @ your library, but amazingly I haven’t - sorry about that. This is a national event coordinated by ALA on November 15 that celebrates the opportunities libraries offer for play between diverse groups of people in a safe, non-commercialized environment. To help promote this event, Hasbro is sending a copy of the game Pictureka! to every public library in the U.S. (thanks, Hasbro!). The shipments have gone out so if you’re at a PL, you should automatically receive your game in the next week or so. Suggestions for how to use the game (and others) are available on ALA’s Games and Gaming Resources wiki, and Scott Nicholson has made a great video showing how to play the game, which also suggests other NGD activities, too.
In addition, Wizards of the Coast donated two gaming kits to libraries that signed up to receive them (sorry, but that offer expired last week), so I want to thank them, too. It’s *very* easy to participate in National Gaming Day, so I hope to see your library on the map. If it’s too late for you to do something this year, you can start planning now for next year’s event on November 14, 2009.
The ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium ends today, and the tag is GLLS2008 so you can track it on sites like Flickr and Twitter. What a great group this has been. Thank you to everyone who came - you all rock! We’ll be collecting slides from presenters and posting them online, along with whatever audio we could capture (not possible in some cases). Give us a few weeks to get all of this posted, but watch the ALA Techsource blog for more info.
I also want to highlight the 6th Annual Chi TAG conference for folks in the Chicagoland region. This is “the only toy and game fair open to the public,” and it will take place on November 22-23 (Saturday-Sunday) at Navy Pier. The show’s founder, Mary Couzin, is an amazing person, and she’s offering librarians (and educators) free admission to the event. (There’s also a discount parking coupon you can print out from the site.) This is different from a trade show, as it’s a chance to literally sit in the aisles and play boardgames all day. ALA will have a booth there, but I’d be going anyway just to see all of the different games. If you’re in the area, this event is going to be a blast, so come join us!
“Yes, we really will turn your library into an amazing miniature golf course for a day. We work with public, school, and academic libraries seeking a fundraising event that will also draw new patrons to the library and provide for a fun community event. We have hosted several events in Connecticut and Massachusetts over the last few years and have inspired and coached other events across the country.”
I think it’s a fascinating idea, especially when you hear Rick talk about it. In fact, the one thing that’s missing from the website is Rick’s passion and enthusiasm for this project, which is really just a labor of love for him (it’s not his primary business).
The basic idea is that the Library Mini Golf nonprofit group will create a miniature golf course for a library, 80% of which is a standard course. The individual holes are created in such a way that they can be set up and taken down quickly, and they can be folded down for easy storage. LMG plans to work with college design school students to create the other, unique 20% of the course, which might include replicas of local buildings or other items of interest to the community. For example, t’s easy to imagine a Chicago version with a mini Sears Tower and Hancock Building. (Myself, I’d love to see a hole with kitchen utensils as obstacles in the 641.5 stacks.)
The library can then schedule an event and solicit local sponsors for each hole. On the big day, LMG will help the library set up the course around the stacks or wherever else you want it, and then people come in and play. Ultimately, Rick would like to see additional sponsors put money towards a college scholarship for the kid that wins a high school tournament held in the library. He estimates a library can raise a minimum of $10,000 in just one day for this type of event.
I can see towns competing against each other for best golf score, and maybe we could even have a national tournament the way we’re doing a videogame one for National Gaming Day on November 15. Rick told me he can make some specialty course holes, too. For example, he can have the hole start on one level and finish on another or start in one row of stacks and finish in another. I can’t wait to see one of these setups for myself, but the possibilities are intriguing, and I’m sure librarians will come up with other great ideas.
The LMG is currently working with other libraries on the east coast, but they’ve already done this with midwestern libraries and even an academic one. I think we’ll start seeing some testimonials appear on the LMG site as it evolves (it just launched and they’re still adding content), but there are also several articles about the fundraisers, such as this one that took place at Washburn University in Kansas and the positive response from the community.
My hope is to arrange for one of Rick’s courses to be set up at the Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium in November so that attendees can play for themselves and learn more about the service. In the meantime, interested libraries can contact Rick to learn more or discuss holding an event. Personally, I’d love to see my home library do one of these (hint, hint).
“A few years ago, Constance Steinkuehler — a game academic at the University of Wisconsin — was spending 12 hours a day playing Lineage, the online world game. She was, as she puts it, a ’siege princess,’ running 150-person raids on hellishly difficult bosses. Most of her guild members were teenage boys.
But they were pretty good at figuring out how to defeat the bosses. One day she found out why. A group of them were building Excel spreadsheets into which they’d dump all the information they’d gathered about how each boss behaved: What potions affected it, what attacks it would use, with what damage, and when. Then they’d develop a mathematical model to explain how the boss worked — and to predict how to beat it.
Often, the first model wouldn’t work very well, so the group would argue about how to strengthen it. Some would offer up new data they’d collected, and suggest tweaks to the model. ‘They’d be sitting around arguing about what model was the best, which was most predictive,’ Steinkuehler recalls.
That’s when it hit her: The kids were practicing science.
They were using the scientific method. They’d think of a hypothesis — This boss is really susceptible to fire spells — and then collect evidence to see if the hypothesis was correct. If it wasn’t, they’d improve it until it accounted for the observed data.
This led Steinkuehler to a fascinating and provocative conclusion: Videogames are becoming the new hotbed of scientific thinking for kids today….
This is what Steinkuehler reports in a research paper — ‘Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds‘ (.pdf) — that she will publish in this spring’s Journal of Science Education and Technology. She and her co-author, Sean Duncan, downloaded the content of 1,984 posts in 85 threads in a discussion board for players of World of Warcraft.” [Games without Frontiers]
Fascinating stuff. We had Constance speak at the first (non-ALA) Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium back in 2005 (sadly, MLS has taken down all of the materials that were online about that event, so I can’t point you to anything about it). You can read my notes from her session here, though..
“Out of the Box is giving $100 worth of games to whoever posts the best story about using games in education! The deadline is 8/31/2008. What are you waiting for? Go Post!” ]
This offer includes libraries, and I know we have some great stories about using games in educational ways!
Out of the Box publishes a whole slew of boardgames (including Snorta, which I really want to try), but they also distribute one of my all-time favorites, Apples to Apples. Did you know that you can make your own A2A cards using a special pack of blank cards you can buy for $5.99? For the trial run of National Gaming Day @ your library on April 18, we did some staff gaming at ALA, something we’ll probably do again leading up to the official NGD on November 15. I’m thinking of customizing A2A with a few…carefully-chosen cards about ALA. If you play this game at your library, this could be a fun way to tailor the game to your community.
If you’ve never played this great game (good for kids, adults, families, and any combination thereof), you can watch a demo of how it’s played. Much laughter is guaranteed.
Just a quick note that the preliminary program for the 2008 ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium is now available online. I’m excited about the program, because I think we’ve got some great tracks and sessions that will be valuable for anyone trying to implement gaming in their library or looking for ways to expand or enhance an existing program. Like last year, we’re going to push the boundaries of the connotations for “gaming” in libraries, in addition to answering your practical, “in the trenches” questions (legal issues, accessibility, cataloging, etc.).
Our keynote speakers continue last year’s tradition of addressing games & learning while also helping to make sense of today’s hot topics.
Andrew Bub, writer, parent, and GamerDad, will explain how to help parents and players find the right games for them.
Jon-Paul Dyson, Vice President for Exhibit Research and Development and Associate Curator at the Strong National Museum of Play, will explain the importance of play, not just for learners but for librarians as well.
Marc Prensky, whose most recent book is titled Don’t Bother Me Mom, I’m Learning, will explore Millennial learning styles and gaming.
Fan favorites Chris Harris, Scott Nicholson, and Eli Neiburger will be back, too. Scott will give us a census update on the number of libraries offering gaming, while Eli will explain how to foster Civic Engagement through Gaming and give us a Pokemon Primer so that we can at least talk the talk with the players in our communities.
Brian Mayer will be joining us this year and with Chris and Scott, he’ll help us understand how modern boardgames are different than the ones we grew up with. Chris and Brian will also discuss their alignment of the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner with boardgames and how librarians can use them to meet student learning needs. Plus, Paul Waelchli will present ideas for incorporating videogame strategies into reference and instruction services to interact with students in a more engaging way.
And that’s just the start - three days of sessions, open gaming (both boardgames and videogames), dine-arounds with experts, and all of the fun and learning you can handle. Attendance is limited to 350 people, so register now. I hope to see you there!
“I had a fabulous time in at the ‘Gaming in Libraries’’ session of the Midwest Library Technology Conference, where they not only talked about games, they let us play. It’s more than a Field of Dreams approach, just tossing games into a room; I have worked with, read about, and heard from those clever librarians who design activities, resources that do what librarians do so well, put information in context for us.
This is not even meant as a post to ponder the implications, more of an observation I had a few weeks ago when I stopped by the Isabelle Hunt Memorial Public Library in Pine, Arizona — the closest town (3 miles) with a gas station (actually 2) and a market (1) to where I live. The population of Pine is likely a bit over 2000, and the library is a real gem….
And darned if on my last visit there, they had re-arranged the checkout racks of DVDs to make room for a single Wii station!
Emphasis above is mine, because I love Alan Levine’s description. Although we’re not related, great Levine minds think alike.
What I really love about this, though, is that it shows how even small libraries can implement gaming on some level, as opposed to other initiatives that require huge increases in staffing or budget lines.
Until a few years ago, the last time I had really played videogames was in college, where I lost a couple of months of my life (in a row) to SimCity on the Super Nintendo system. I learned my lesson from that and since then, I’ve stayed away from games that I know will suck in huge amounts of my time because I’ll probably enjoy them so much. So instead, I stick mainly to casual (and usually social) games, although I do keep a list of all of the ones I’m going to play someday when I have more time, including The Sims, Myst, and World of Warcraft.
Which is why I love the fact that Michael Porter plays WoW and explains it in his presentations and sometimes on his blog. He even started a Facebook group just for WoW librarians, but now he’s gone one better and created a WoW Guild just for libraries and librarians.
“World of Warcraft is the largest “Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game” in the world. It has 10 million plus subscribers and is, in addition to being a blast and a lovely distraction, gloriously fun and addictive to many. And now, finally, WE (Libraries and Librarians) have a guild. If you play WoW and work in, for, or with Libraryland, you can now join the Libraries and Librarians Guild. We are new, but we already have a substantial Guild web site complete with a forum (very good in Wow-land). And a bank. In fact, we have a bank with three tabs and daily pulls for repairs (that is also quite good in WoW-land). Heck we even have an optional free (to you) Guild tabard (sort of like a t-shirt you wear in the game)….
So join us! We’ll be there waiting to show you the ropes…and chat…and kill bad guys! Along the way, you’ll likely grok the whole online community/gaming/libraries thing just a little bit more, and have a blast while you’re at it. In fact, consider this your invitation to do exactly that!
Note: If you want to join this guild you must be on the Aerie Peak -US server. If you are a new player be sure to pick that server! Also, if you are creating a toon (new character) or transferring an existing character to join this guild, be sure you put it on this server (Aerie Peak - US)!!!” [Libraryman]
This is an annual survey done by Dr. Scott Nicholson, associate professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, and is designed to collect information about gaming programs run in libraries in 2007. This can be any type of game (board, card, video, chess, puzzle) at any type of library (public, school, academic, or special). The focus is on gaming programs, where the libraries schedule an event of some type featuring games, and on gaming programs that were run sometime during the 2007 calendar year.
Questions? Contact Scott Nicholson at [email protected]. I can tell you that having this kind of data has been crucial when talking with reporters, so I hope you’ll help and fill out the form for this year’s survey. Thanks!
I’ve finally had a moment to collect room numbers, and since I see that some of the gaming stuff isn’t listed in the program guide, here’s a quick run-down.
Open Gaming Night
7:30-10:30pm
Hilton, Pacific Ballroom C
Games and Gaming MIG meeting (open to any attendee)
10:00am-noon
Sheraton Park Hotel in Plaza A/B
DDR at the Wellness Fair
10:30am-2:30pm
On the exhibit floor
Once again I had a great time at the Computers in Libraries conference, even though I didn’t get to stay for the whole thing. I did a preconference with Aaron Schmidt on gaming that was our best one yet, and I got some great feedback about the “Hi Tech, Hi Touch” presentation I was asked to give. I want to give a special thank you to everyone who joined in the fun and made gaming night such a huge success that we’ve already been asked to do it again at Internet Librarian.
Slides from my talks are up on my presentations wiki. Feel free to contact me if you have questions about them. As always, the best thing about these conferences is the people. Spending time with old friends is always special, and I love getting to meet online friends in person. A big thank you to everyone who was so supportive and encouraging - I really appreciated all of your comments.
“At the Fontana Branch Library, teen librarian Mike Jimenez formed a video game club that draws up to 50 players every Thursday. A new, soon-to-open library will host gaming tournaments run on a 26-computer network in the teen area, he said.
Alicia Doktor, who is in charge of the teen services at Riverside Public Library, said the comic book-formatted graphic novels are strategically placed under the plasma screen to lure prospective readers. ‘Most of the time they’ll check out a book,’ she said.
Rosas, a senior at Riverside’s North High, drives downtown to the library every day after school. Besides coming to check MySpace, he reads fiction, especially the short stories of Larry Brown. But at 3:15 p.m. Tuesdays, he’s ready to take on Guitar Hero. ” [The Press Enterprise]
“Mrs. McCoy does not do this because she is passionate about chess; she barely knew how to play before this school year. But she began teaching it as part of an unusual pilot program under way in more than 100 second- and third-grade classrooms across Idaho.
On Thursday, state officials will announce in Boise that the program will be extended in the fall to all second and third graders — making Idaho the first state to offer a statewide chess curriculum….
There are no studies showing that teaching chess has benefits for children, but there is anecdotal evidence, Mr. Luna said.
‘One of the things that we hear is that too much of what we do is based on rote memorization,’ Mr. Luna said. ‘The part I really like about this program is that kids are thinking ahead.’…
Some of the benefits of the program, Mrs. McCoy said, came in unexpected areas.
‘I actually have one student who is originally from Russia and two Hispanic students who have limited English skills, and chess kind of leveled the playing field, and it kind of helped their self-esteem issues,’ she said. ” [New York Times]
“And you thought libraries were supposed to be quiet. Not on Friday.
Under the Beaux-Arts arches of Astor Hall at the New York Public Library’s flagship building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, thumping hard-rock beats mixed with tennis-ball thwacks and the screech of burning tires late Friday afternoon, as the library showed off the latest addition to its collections of books, films, music and maps: video games….
‘What we’re seeing is that in addition to simply helping bring kids into the library in the first place, games are having a broader effect on players, and they have the potential to be a great teaching tool,’ Mr. [Jack] Martin said. ‘If a kid takes a test and fails, that’s it. But in a game, if you fail you get to take what you’ve learned and try again.’
‘In a lot of these games you have to understand the rules, you have to understand the game’s world, its story. For some games you have to understand its history and the characters in order to play effectively.’…
Across the hall, Radhames Saldivar, 16, a 10th grader from upper Manhattan, ripped through a blistering rendition of Heart’s ‘Barracuda’ on Guitar Hero III. Afterward he said: ‘I never thought I’d see this happen. I might have to check out the library some more.’
A few feet away, Carlos Rivera, 16, said he helped organize the regular Friday afternoon game sessions at the Jefferson Market library branch in Greenwich Village.
‘I thought a library was just for books, just for studying, just for a lot of things I don’t normally do,’ he said. ‘But when I found out the library was starting to have games it was great, because it’s really good to hear that the library is paying more attention to the youth and what we’re into.’
He paused. ‘And it’s also good because I can just say to my parents, ‘I’m going to the library.’ ‘ ” [New York Times
When I talk with skeptics of videogame services in libraries, I remind them that gaming isn’t a new concept for us. Most public (and even school) libraries have some sort of past association with chess, as well as other board games, and most public (and even academic) libraries today realize that some percentage of their users are playing games on the library’s internet terminals. So if chess is okay in the library, how are videogames different, especially the socially-oriented ones that libraries tend to offer?
This isn’t a new question, as I recently learned when Val alerted me to a very public discussion about videogames in libraries that took place back in 1982-83, even spilling over onto the May 9, 1983, “CBS Morning News” show.
It all started with a November 1982 column in School Library Journal by Carol Emmens about four public libraries that were - even back then - circulating videogames. Some quotes from that piece:
“PacMan has invaded restaurants, doctors’ offices, arcades, homes, and the world of television as the star of a Saturday morning cartoon show. And now he has even invaded libraries! He is at the forefront of a new library service–the circulation of video games. A survey turned up four libraries that circulate games.
‘As far as I’m concerned, the circulation of video games is too successful,’ says Harvey Barfield, audiovisual librarian at Arlington Heights Memorial Library (Ill.)….
The library (serving 65,000) owns 400 videocassettes and 50 Atari cartridges, purchased with AV department funds. The combined monthly circulation for videocassettes and games is approximately 2500….
With $1000 seed money provided by the Friends of the Library, [East Brunswick (N.J.) Public Library] bought 55 cartridge locally, and on the first day of service every cartridge was checked out. The Friends donated another $500, and now the cartridge collection totals 105.
[Assistant Director Sharon] Karmazin says, ‘All the cartridges are out all the time and the circulation is really incredible: 235 in July and 259 in August. People hang around the library for hours waiting for returns….
In February, the South River (N.J.) Public Library (serving 14,000) started to circulate 20 cartridges, which had been purchased with $200 donated by the Friends of the Library…. Circulation is very high, and [Director Irene] Cackowski, noting the many new users brought into the library, says, ‘What a service! I can’t say enough good about it.’…
The innovations at Cloquet [(M.N.) Public Library] reflect the philosophy of Head Librarian Mike Knievel, that libraries are not lobbyists for print. He says, ‘The role of the library is not to push books per se, but to acquire, organize, and redistribute information and recreational materials,’ regardless of format.”
Libraries experimenting with videogames and finding them to be a very popular service turned out to be too much for Will Manley, though. He wrote a blistering attack on the practice in the March 1983 edition of Wilson Library Bulletin. As early as 1983, he was sounding the alarm that videogames in the library would be the death of civilization as we know it.
“Nothing, repeat nothing, in eleven years of being a librarian has upset me more than a little, one-page article in the School Library Journal of November 1982, in which the directors of four public libraries boasted about the wonderful success they were having circulating video game cartridges.
Video games! In the public library! Chain saws, paint rollers, hamsters, drill bits–these items for circulation, when we’ve read about them over the past ten years in our professional literature, concerned a number of us as constituting nonsense. But there is something faintly tolerable about nonsense. It’s part of the human condition. We come up against nonsense all the time–at school, the post office, the dentist’s office, and yes, occasionally the public library. But nonsense, once it is accepted for what it is, can even to a degree be funny. The key to nonsense is that it just happens–there is very little rhyme or reason or philosophy to it.
But circulating video games at the public library is not nonsense. It is seriously wrong. It is an abandonment of the mission of the public library. It is surrendering to the commercial and the superficial. It is contrary to everything we stand for….
In effect, video games constitute the most serious threat to that important relationship between children and books since the advent of the television….
The ‘it brings new people into the library’ argument is issuing forth from the lips of more and more librarians, and that’s an indication that we’ve forgotten what a library is all about….
And when those popular services not only don’t complement our focus on the printed word but actually clash against it, then we begin to subvert that commitment [to the common good]….
If we stop standing for the importance of books and information, then we will lose everything.”
All of this must have become so controversial that Manley and Knievel were invited to debate the topic of “print vs. non-print” on “CBS Morning News” with Bill Kurtis. In the same over-the-top tone of his written editorial, Manley proclaimed on the show that, “Offering videogames in libraries is like serving martinis at AA meetings.”
This attitude was overly-simplistic and short-sighted 25 years ago, and it still is today. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt that in this day and age, especially with usage statistics supporting the inclusion of non-text materials and programming, that he has since changed his opinion that public libraries should focus only on text on paper.
But the whole thing does illustrate how libraries aren’t just about books, how new content formats are always viewed suspiciously as not being part of the library’s mission, and how that view changes over time once the format becomes more mainstream. Twenty-five years later, it’s important for librarians to realize that videogames are just one more format in a long line of many, and that they are an extension of the same types of services we have provided for decades such as storytime, board games, programs for adults, craft programs for children, meeting space for knitting clubs, computer classes, and more. How could we possibly justify such basic current services as internet access and reference service if we cling to outdated definitions of the library as being focused solely on the written word?
Personally, I believe public libraries are the last safe spaces that serve (and welcome) everyone in the community, regardless of race, economic position, age, or any other factor. Many libraries have worked hard to become the center of their communities, and the concepts of the library as a space for civic engagement and as a “third place” are valid and important roles. The library as a 19th century vault of written knowledge with no other purpose but to raise the moral conscience of the masses through “good” literature is a long-gone proposition. Times change, and libraries need to change with them.
I’m not calling Manley out on his views from 25-years ago, so much as showing that we’re still having these same arguments today and to note that you could substitute “fiction,” “children,” “music,” “computers,” “internet,” or “videos” in any of the above quotes to see where we’ve already been on this. The key is to remember that gaming in libraries in any form is an “and” proposition, not an “or.” It can coexist peacefully with the books, magazines, newspapers, and other services. It’s not the end of the world as we know it.
“[Scott] Nicholson, an associate professor in the School of Information Studies, recently received a $5,000 grant from Gaylord Brothers, a library supply company located in Syracuse, to begin building a portable library game lab. Money from the grant will specifically go toward purchasing projectors, consoles, screens, accessories and games, Nicholson said.
‘This was a great way for Gaylord to support Syracuse University, the community and gaming libraries in general,; said Henry Orr, director of business development at Gaylord. He also noted that the credit for the grant should go to Gaylord’s President and CEO Guy Marhewka….
Nicholson’s goal is to explore the implications of offering gaming as a library service. Additionally, he hopes to study the entire gaming experience and how gaming will change the attitudes of students toward the library.
‘Gaming activities are like the new coffee shop in Bird Library; it’s not about the coffee so much as the social atmosphere it creates,’ Nicholson said….
‘Gaming is currently the wild, wild west of libraries,’ Orr said….
The Library Game Lab project will occur in three main phases, depending on the availability of outside funding. Nicholson has been working on the first phase of the project for the past year, working with students to survey libraries and how they view gaming….
The project’s current phase, to create a portable library game lab, will be followed by the next phase, to increase awareness about the project.
‘With this project, I will travel to library conferences and expose librarians to the spectrum of games, talk about what types of games are best for certain demographic groups with libraries and collect more data about what is happening,’ Nicholson said.
The third and final phase of the project will be to set up research projects, which will explore how the different types of games relate to different types of people.
‘This will be the ongoing life of the lab - to analyze new games and game types, to recommend the best games for different goals and demographic groups and to work with industry to help them create gaming experiences more suited for a library/school setting,’ Nicholson said.
Nicholson said as soon as he is able to secure more funding to build the program, he hopes to start aggressively drawing in students to help with the project. So far he has relied heavily on volunteers to help with research and promoting the program. In addition, Nicholson is teaching a graduate-level iSchool class in May on gaming in libraries, and it has already received considerable student interest.
There has been both support and criticism from the Syracuse community at large regarding the Library Game Lab, but Nicholson said the key is getting people to understand that this is not about ‘first person shooters,’ but rather about ‘understanding how gaming works as a service and how libraries and schools can be engaged.’ ” [The Daily Orange]
