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Making ILL a Game
April 22, 2008

Is interlibrary loan something you do, or something you can't wait to do? What if the task were more social? What if, and pardon me for going way out here, interlibrary loan were a game?
Amazing things happen to ordinary tasks when we imbue them with extraordinary significance. As Seth Godin noted recently, New York and DC were all in a twitter over the Pope's visit. Extraordinary measures were taken and people went a bit further because of the potential for a pontifical visit. As Liz Lawley pointed out in a recent talk, Mary Poppins does a nice job of highlighting this point as well; a spoonful of sugar does help the medicine go down. But what if that spoonful of sugar is delivered in the form of a game?

We are exploring turning ILL into a game. The basic mechanic will give libraries points for sending and receiving interlibrary loans, with bonus points for prompt delivery and ontime returns. A leaderboard (competition drives a LOT more than you might want to admit!) might prompt librarians to become more involved in resource sharing.

This is all part of a digital reshift. While some might say that resource sharing is down because more items are available digitally, we can also use the digital reshift and new technologies for online gaming to reinvigorate resource sharing. What are we really doing here? We are encouraging libraries to be more diverse in their collection development. To really think like a system (i.e. part of an information collective) as they consider areas for improvement. Sure, more informaiton is being digitized, but there is also a great deal more information now than ever before. Making ILL a game - providing points and recognition for libraries who have unique collections that can supply a region's needs - can help encourage libraries to explore the long tail.

Oh, and no three-part carbon forms are needed.

Posted by Chris Harris on April 22, 2008 | Comments (5)