IL2007: Gaming & Libraries: Engaging Strategies

IL2007: Gaming & Libraries: Engaging Strategies
Presenter: Jenny Levine

Jenny Levine started the presentation by talking about all the different types of games that exist, and the completely wrong stereotype of gamers.  The demographics of gamers have changed dramatically in the last decade.  More people play online games than use social networking sites!  Women who are 18 and older represent a higher portion of gamers than boys age 17 and younger.  Pew's study in 2003 of college students and found that all of them had played video games--every single respondent.  If you are an incoming freshman, your average is having played 10,000 hours of games.   The average age of a gamer is 33. 

Levine showed some photos of gamers on Flickr--families playing wii tennis, a young girl with an amazing Guitar Hero record, kids beating adults, adults beating kids, and the famous photo of Stephen Abram playing a 7-year old kid at bowling on a wii at ALA.  She then showed a YouTube video of Erickson Sports' Nintendo Wii Bowling Championship (game 1).  This was a wii gaming championship at a retirement community, and the video rocked :)  And proves the point that gaming crosses all boundaries.  Levine spoke about some qualities of gamers: that they are willing to experiment and keep trying, are good at prioritizing, have an inherent distrust of bosses. 

Levine then went through several differnet games--talking about the educational value in each (counting and turn-taking in Candyland, statistics and cooperation in Civilization).  bout 75% of libraries support gaming, 80% allow users to play games, 20% circulate games.  78% of participants said that the reputation of the library was better for them after gaming.  She then talked about how to justify gaming projects to your library.  She suggests that we read the book Everything Bad is Good For you by Steven Johnson (I echo that recommendation--it's excellent!).  She talked about how we, as librarians, don't judge people's reading habits.  If we judge people's preference for format and/or content by limiting gaming, then we are doing exactly what we refuse to do with the book form.  We got a great list of examples of educational games, games that work well to teach socialization and creativity skills.  Go to www.CognitiveLabs.com/word_shoot.com to see Word Shoot, a word where you have to type words in to be able to shoot the tanks -- educational?  Yes! 

The Carvers Bay Branch Library in South Carolina serves a poor rural community.  They got a grant for a new library based on their desire to focus on gaming in the library.  They have a huge bank of gaming PCs.  Everyone gets 200 hours of gaming per week, but if you get a library card you get more hours, book reports and book checkouts get you more hours too. 

She talked about ways to involve gaming in your library.  Develop collections for gamers, offer game nights, put out non-electronic games at game nights, UIUC and Stanford are preserving games (as is the Library of Congress).  The Champaign Public Library did trading cards for each librarian, kids collect them all and get a prize.  Easy!  Instead of asking people what their favorite books are, ask what games they like too (and then do readers advisory based on their gaming preferences).  You should also have gaming equipment available in the library.  At this point Jenny listed what a number of different libraries are doing with gaming. The Downers Grove Library tool their paper-based quiz about how to use the library (that they use with students) and made it into an online quiz and the students responded much better.  The University of Calgary is modifying Half-Life and have recreated the library inside the game.  One library created library games - where you shelve books, an there is a user-interaction game where players have to answer patrons' questions, put their materials in the book drop, and keep them happy.  Oh, so, so, real to life!

Jenny talked a bit about cost.  It can be totally free if you have the public bring in their own equipment.  You can have local business donate equipment, prizes, trophies.  The Nintendo DS is offering a lot of games that are increasingly educational.  In one you are a lawyer, in anotehr you are a surgeon.  Cooking Mama lets you cook items virtually.  She also mentioned several games geared toward baby boomers and older gamers: Big Brain Academy, Brain Age, and such. 

The Ann Arbor District Library is making their tournament software open to every library in the country.  Just go to the website and sign up.  Kids in every library can compete against each other--one central leader board plus game-specific boards.  She also recommends the Gamers in the Library book, a new book that she recommends for anyone interested in implementing any aspect of gaming in their libraries.

IL2007