Game on

As an up and coming academic librarian, I have a new and narrow interest in gaming in libraries--mostly centered on learning through games. The Blogger Alley reports from the Gaming in Libraries 2005 conference were amazing, but a bit overwhelming. I've gone back through them to highlight some I may want to revisit.

If Chad Haefele of Hidden Peanuts was live blogging, I'm incredibly jealous. His posts sound like what I write when I post-blog conference events--often days (or weeks--I'm still meaning to get some stuff up about the Missouri Library Association from October) after the event.

Keynote
From Chad's post about the keynote address by Les Gasser:

Some faculty at the University of Illinois are holding meetings in-game of Second Life! They bought an island and are working on transforming it into their own information repository.

The Civilization series even has its own library in the in-game society. In this case it teaches players how to better play the game. Provide service in venues where we don’t usually go.

The Gaming Landscape
Four bloggers captured all or most of the statistics that Steve Jones of Pew presented in "The Gaming Landscape," Chad , Chris Deweese of Clam Chowder, Jenny Levine of The Shifted Librarian, and Beth Gallaway of Game On: Games in Libraries. Sixty-five percent of college students are regular or occasional players of video/computer/online games. Jenny captured this odd fact:

what was interesting is that to them, pulling out your cell phone and playing a game while waiting for a friend didn’t constitute “gaming” for them

MMOGs
Constance A. Steinkuehler in "The Gaming Generation & Libraries: Intersections" session discussed Massively Multiplayer Online Games or MMOGs (Chad called these Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, MMORPGs). She discussed the role of literacy in these virtual worlds--including fan fiction written by the players. This quote, from Chad's account, gave me hope that there is a role for librarians in this venue:

Success in the game requires use of outside technologies (web browser, research, voice communication, etc.)

Running a tournament
If I ever have the opportunity to run a gaming tournament, I'll start with these notes from Eli Neiburger's talk: Chris' version and Chad's version. Eli runs the popular gaming tournaments for the Ann Arbor District Library.

Game-based learning & library instruction
This is possibly the most directly relevant talk for academic librarians, delivered by Christy Branston, gov docs librarian at the University of Waterloo. She recommended the book What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy by James Gee (just requested that through Mobius--I guess my student account is good for another week or so.) I loved this suggestion for incorporating games into library instruction (from Chad's account): "Experiment on staff!" Christy developed a course for government information instruction. She discovered that it worked better for team play, from Jenny's post:

the team idea worked well because the peer pressure made sure they played the game

put out a call for others that want to work on gaming in instructional learning to collaborate and make it open source – contact Christy!

What Libraries Can Do for Gamers
The last talk before the speakers' panel was by Beth Gallaway. I really liked her suggestions about "Be a Strategy Guide" (see that section of Chad's post) which seems pretty good advice for a reference librarian, in general.

Speakers Panel
Jenny captured the most thorough version of this. One line has sparked a controversy at Walt Crawford's blog. As someone observing her first holiday season as an adult orphan, I agree with Walt that there's nothing humorous about the previous generation dying off.

Women go through the experience of using the phrase "golf widow" or "football widow" humorously in their twenties and thirties. In most groups of women, this practice usually stops later in life as one of their mothers, or, worse yet, one of their friends becomes an actual widow, because the humor disappears. Maybe this controversy will have a similar dampening affect on librarians using death as a metaphorical device when discussing new technologies. I suspect that will elevate the conversation, not diminish it--make it more about how to bring people along at speeds that are comfortable to them.

What's next?

• I subscribed to Beth Gallaway's Game On blog.


• I'm planning to attend this event that Chris Deweese has set up across the river from me.


• I may be interested in exploring a MMOG. Anyone have a suggestion? Or willing to be a guide?

June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 June 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008