Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting a preconference workshop at PLA with Eli Neiburger. Even better than listening to Eli talk was getting someone to play a video game for the first time. She liked it.

Here are some resources mentioned during the presentation:

- PDF of our slides
- the video Eli showed
- GTSystem WIki
- ALA’s library gaming toolkit
- Games in Libraries Podcast
- Eli’s book!
- 8 Bit Library
- National Gaming Day

The first image is the homepage of a big Lithuanian library wiki called Grazi tu Mano.

And *this!* This is the start page for a library run Alternate Reality Game called Paskutinis valdovas which makes me really wish I was able to read Lithuanian. The start of the game is a note left for the story’s main character by a girl in the library.

What an inspiration!

A follow up post states that event was a big success, attracting over 60 people to the library after hours.

Two bonuses. 1. The genre-x blog is particularly attractive. 2. When you visit the “about” page on the site, it doesn’t first go into details about the group or the library. It highlights the people behind the group.

Congrats to the folks at OPPL for connecting with a group that libraries have traditionally ignored.

Jenny Levine and I have given a few gaming workshops at past Computers in Libraries and Internet Librarian conferences. After the sessions we’ve opened up the room to anyone interested in playing some games and/or learning about gaming. It’s proven to be a popular and really fun time, so this year Information Today has turned the post-workshop gameplay into a featured event. With refreshments even!

We’ve assembled an impressive array of games!

Systems: Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2, and Xbox 360. We’ll also have two Nintendo DS handhelds.

Games: Wii Sports, DDR, Hotel Dusk, Guitar Hero III, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Wario Smooth Moves, whatever you bring, and Rock Band.

Since we’ll have three systems going at once, we’re opening up the option of an honest to goodness tournament with prizes. You probably want to know which game, huh? Well, it’s up to you. Sign up in the comments here or at a page we’ve created on the CIL08 wiki titled CIL08 Gaming Night to play Rock Band, Guitar Hero, or DDR. We’ll play whichever game gets the most signups!

In addition, Chris Harris is bringing some modern board games. Bring your own games, bring your latest shiny, new gadgets, and we’ll see you Sunday night!

The system came with a copy of “Spider-man 3″ on Blu-ray that is hopefully going to find its way into the NPPL’s collection. Once we get this cataloged correctly I’ll likely buy a few more Blu-ray titles. Just enough so that we can advertise that we have a small collection. Not only will it serve as a good experiment to see if the discs are popular, it will also serve as good marketing for the NPPL. Even if swarms of people don’t have Blu-ray players (yet) it will showcase the library as a place with exciting new stuff that understands what’s happening in the larger information world. All that for $200? A bargain! It doesn’t always take much to try new things.

We’ll make our Blu-ray discs non-holdable for a month, just like our other new materials. Yes, this slightly diminishes the spirit of library sharing and maybe inconveniences some non-NPPL patrons. However, it drives some in house traffic to our relatively new beautiful library. While that sounds like a library-centered policy (bad!), it isn’t *fully* library-centered. The non-holdable period keeps new and popular titles around for people in North Plains to browse. This makes residents of North Plains happy and increases the library’s “placeness,” making it interesting and vital.

Helene Blowers suggested that a Pecha Kucha presentation be held. Six of us will have 20 slides and 20 seconds each slide to make a point. I’m moderating the track that this is in which means I get to cut people off mid-sentence during this session. Fun! [Tuesday, Track C, 4pm]

Jenny Levine and I have been doing gaming workshops at the past couple IL and CIL conferences with some informal open gaming afterwards. It has morphed into a Sunday night event: the Gaming & Gadgets Petting Zoo. I need to start practicing being a Guitar Hero.

I’m facilitating a postconference workshop with some top notch library thinkers.
Helene Blowers, John Blyberg, Sarah Houghton-Jan and David Lee King will be giving short presentations followed by conversation and brainstorming. It should result in some great potential projects!

Tuesday morning’s keynote will be given by Erik Boekesteijn and Jaap van de Geer from the Delft Public Library. Their presentation at Internet Librarian last year might be my favorite conference moment of 2007. This should be just as good! They’ll share stories from their 2007 tour of U.S. libraries.

Tuesday night is the Second Annual InfoTubey Awards for outstanding library marketing on YouTube.

Hurrah for learning!

For four afternoons in November, the Dallas Baptist University Vance Memorial Library hosted their Are You As Smart As A Freshman? event. Patterned after the popular game show Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?, this event had 2nd-4th year students competing for prizes by answering questions that university freshman should be familiar with. They were able to use a panel of Freshmen as part of their “lifelines” as well as one of the library’s reference librarians …The intent of the event was to raise awareness of the library and its resources and to offer a fun outlet for students within the library’s facilities.

Gaming in libraries does not just mean video/computer games! Nice work!

I do have the question of whether there are legalities of using
Nintendo images/wallpaper images (located throughout their website) for our first upcoming gaming event?

Eli Neiburger chimes in with a great response:

You are in the clear. I was told by GolinHarris, Nintendo’s Marketing Firm, that using their Intellectual Property in promotional materials for a free library event is allowed and legal. You are promoting their products. They love that. =) There is no legal issue here. This is allowed, and even encouraged, by the rightsholders. Let me know if you have any other questions about this!

→ half-life 2 real-time strategy mod

→ symantec’s FPS about network security

→ micro counter strike
FPS for cell phones

→ Virtual crack houses aid rehab
Gaming, Pavlovian conditioning and recovery

Nintendo DS toiletry by nicolasnova

Here’s a service station that a mall in Korea created. Whilst shopping, people can recharge their DSs, and clean their touch screens. This is a fantastic example of an institution understanding the habits of their customers. Not only should libraries be this understanding in general, but some might be able to replicate this particular service.

[via pasta&vinegar]

I’m especially interested in the possible dichotomy of striving to break down barriers to library use (making it easy) and creating an environment in which people must become engaged (and put forth effort) to use. Could the goal of making our OPACs mindlessly easy be a bad idea after all? What if we made our goal mindfully easy OPACs that were actually interesting to use? The ideal goal, I suppose, would be one that’s easy for all to use and also contains various layers of interestingness for those who would like to delve deeper. Our current mindfully difficult OPACs incorporate risk, experimentation, and the need for persistence and collaboration, but not in an appropriate way. Make no small plans, eh?

One reason I’m keen on providing a gaming-like experience for interested library patrons is the success I’ve had with it on a small scale. Wanting the kids from the computer room to interact with the print collection (so old fashioned, I know), one day I offered some manga stickers to the first few people to a) find a book that they’ve read and liked and b) tell me about it. They actually scurried around the YA section with the enthusiasm they usually reserve for Runescape. I repeated the game a few times, and during the last few rounds a few of the boys found books and told me about them immediately. When I asked how they found their books so quickly, they replied that they figured that I would ask them the same question at some point, so they tried to remember the titles and authors of books they liked.

.

Pasta&Vingear has some more comments on the museum game, and there’s a video about it, though it is Danish language.

It would be really great if MCL would record an audio tour and have it available as an MP3 on their website. With adequate promotion I’m certain they’d have people wandering around the library wearing their earbuds learning about the library building. The tour could even be a game. Clues could be left around the library, players could be given a sheet to fill out as they find the clues, and the results could be turned in to a Reference Librarian on duty. Expanding this idea, they could do an audio walking (or cycling!) tour version of their successful Branches and Byways which highlights the neighborhoods around MCL branches. I’ve heard these pages – library produced content – are the most popular pages on their site.

I don’t mean to be telling MCL what to do. I’ve just used them as an example because they’re my home library and I love the Central Library (and my branch – Belmont rules!). In other words, these ideas aren’t limited to Multnomah County, right? Many libraries have interesting features or are situated in locations around something worth talking about. The main strip of North Plains is only three blocks long, but maybe there are some good tidbits to share. If not, I bet a driving tour of the surrounding area could work. The only cost involved in producing such an audio tour is staff time.

An ambitious library committed to follow through could make a variety of tours, assemble tours from staff and people in the community and podcast the series. Not sure people would be interested? AudioSnacks is a website all about user generated audio tours. The site has a commercial model, but some of the tours are free.

One of the author’s central ideas is that books are migrating online and ceasing to be books. Take for example wikipedia. He also writes,

Many fantasy fans, for example, have already put aside books and logged on to “virtual worlds” such as “World of Warcraft”, in which muscular heroes and heroines get together to slay dragons and such like. Science fiction may go the same way, and is arguably already being created by “residents” of online worlds such as Second Life.

What makes this claim somewhat more interesting in that it is tempered with the statement that

Most stories, however, will never find a better medium than the paper-bound novel. That is because readers immersed in a storyline want above all not to be interrupted, and all online media teem with distractions (even a hyperlink is an interruption).

I don’t think all fantasy readers have set down print books though I’m sure some have. However, many people are certainly getting the same (or greater) satisfaction from games in addition to reading books. With sales of the Wii, Xbox 360, PS3 approaching 8 million units (and let’s not forget the 8.5 million World of Warcraft players), it is safe to say that more people are either replacing or supplementing their reading with gaming.

The article isn’t just about gaming. There’s an interesting bit about recapturing the oral nature of poetry though podcasting, and getting haiku text messages. Both of these things, by the way, are services that any library could offer at no real cost…

Each scenario is a different location with a specific natural hazard against which you must protect a village or town. The game does a great job of educating the player about making good decisions regarding fortifying the environment without being boring or dry. Another solid explicitly educational game to add to the list I put together at my post “quick educational gaming links.” No, maybe not as addictive as line rider, but still fun.

DEFINITION: To offer non-denominational, inter-faith seasonal greetings, which are nevertheless a tad politically incorrect.

My first thoughts were tannenbomb and holigrate but you can do better.

The community of players votes on the words provided, and points are assigned.

There’s even a Verbotomy RSS page where you can grab your preferred flavor of feed so you don’t have to remember to go to the page.