New ways librarians can support learning and literacy

For three days in July, the first TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium drew more than 300 public, school, and academic librarians, and everyone in between, to Chicago. There was even representation from as far away as New Zealand and Australia.

The conference focused on how gaming impacts libraries and supports learning and literacy and the role of librarians “in educating the public about the value of games and gaming literacy.” In addition to a lineup of outstanding keynote speakers, there were about two dozen sessions covering topics ranging from building a gaming community to teaching youngsters how to make their own games to text-based adventure gaming.

All the presenters agreed that “an important skill set can be achieved through experimentation (i.e., gaming), and libraries are a perfect place for telling stories through this medium in a variety of ways.” Gaming does not necessarily have to involve technology and can be integrated into many of the library's existing programs and services. We must pay attention to “play” as a way to deliver services since stories exist in more than one modality. For example, Naruto is available on Cartoon Network, in book format as manga, in a movie version, on YouTube, and created by teens in Teen Second Life as role playing characters.

As providers of information, libraries must recognize these different ways of delivering content and also understand how they work to make the connection within a “participatory culture.” Henry Jenkins, Director, Comparative Media Studies Program, MIT, pointed out in his keynote address, “What Librarians Need to Know about Games, Media Literacy, and Participatory Culture,” that “new cultural competencies like the ability to navigate across different kinds of media or the ability to “mashup” media content are vital for today's kids–and games develop those skills.” Jenkins acknowledged that intermixing media content is nothing new. Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel mashed up biblical scenes, and Shakespeare drew from many sources and poets to create his own fanfiction. Games are the ideal model for combining content in different ways and incorporating problem solving into the gaming experience. Jenkins also noted that “It's not just about turning your library over to games...It's about thinking what it means to play as an alternative system of learning.”

Games without Borders

Telling stories through video games that have plots, creating board games that feature a beginning, a middle, and an end, or hosting a role-playing program based on a movie about a game offer something for everyone. Games can easily be incorporated as a core library service or into existing library services and resources such as the Dewey decimal system, summer reading, and community library programming. Elizabeth Lawley, Director, Lab for Social Computing, Rochester Institute of Technology, emphasized in her keynote speech, “Games without Borders: Gaming Beyond Consoles and Screens,” that libraries have a role to play in telling good, non-sensational stories about gaming that will help adults understand that gaming has real benefits. She pointed out that when you do a simple Google search for “books for youth” or “books for kids” you can find links to the American Library Association, the National Education Association, and the New York Public Library Web sites. Google “best video games for kids,” and the sites tend to be insider reviews by gamers for gamers, not reviews written by librarians for parents. She challenged the audience: “A year from now, when I do this search, can I see some library sites? All it takes is time evaluating resources. That's what we do.”

Big Fun, Big Learning

Big games take players of all ages away from a screen or a game board and out into the real world, encouraging interaction with the environment and other players. Gregory Trefry, a game designer with GameLab (gamelab.com), offered librarians a number of ways to involve their libraries with gaming on a grand scale in his keynote address, “Big Fun, Big Learning: Transforming the World Through Play.” These games use the city as the game board, and games are developed using mapping, scavenger hunt themes, and more. “Secret Agent” is a terrific scavenger hunt game. Players gather clues by going to designated meeting places and approaching a staff member, or collect secret codes by looking in a certain book for a specific word on a designated page. In another type of scavenger hunt game, “Then and Now,” the library displays historic photos of the town and asks players to find the places pictured and bring back photos of what they look like today. This type of gaming lends itself to a wide range of ages and family play.

Tournament Games

Eli Neiburger, Manager of Information Access and Systems at the Ann Arbor (MI) Public Library, explained how the kids and teens at his library discovered library resources in an organic way in “Tournament Games for Any Occasion.” The library organized Dance Dance Revolution and “Mario Mix” tournaments one Saturday a month for three hours. Teens not only skipped soccer games and baseball tournaments to participate in the monthly events, but they investigated other services that the library provided because gaming made the library more relevant to them. Neiburger's recently published book, Gamers. . .in the Library?! The Why, What, and How of Videogame Tournaments for All Ages (ALA Editions 2007) details his program ideas.

Building a Gaming Community

According to a recent study conducted by Syracuse University, at least 7 out of 10 public libraries support gaming (out of 400 libraries surveyed). What exactly does “support gaming” mean? Donald Dennis, Research Assistant, Syracuse University School of Information Studies, told conference participants in his presentation, “Building a Gaming Community and a Game Friendly Environment,” that it could entail promoting gaming when new movies are released, such as the DVD board game, Scene It, that features hundreds of Hollywood stars and film clips, or Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a PC and video console game. Old movies such as Cloak and Dagger could be resurrected by playing the Atari version or the card game. Watch for the release of new manga where the characters are playing the Chinese game of Go, such as in the popular Hiraku no Go, in issues of the Japanese magazine Shoen Jump. Consider organizing a game of Go to promote an upcoming issue and to encourage group participation in the library. Libraries often have book reviews and even podcasts, so why not incorporate reviews and audio/video podcasts for games? Dennis referred librarians to boardgameswithscott.com, a free Internet video series that reviews and explains how to play various board games. This will help libraries become an important resource for gamers, parents, and the entire community.

Teens Gaming Their Way to Success

The Carvers Bay Branch Library in South Carolina serves a population where there is a 30 percent rate of poverty and illiteracy. When the library opened, only 2 percent of the residents had library cards. Dwight McInvaill, Georgetown (SC) County Library, talked about a gaming success story in “Teens Gaming Their Way to Success at the Carvers Bay Branch Library.” Through a grant, the library created a state-of-the-art gaming center to attract high school students and increase library usage and literacy. Almost immediately, 60 young people joined the gaming club. McInvaill explained how this program helped to transform the community.

Growing a Gamers Group

Participatory culture through gaming can best be summed up through the “Growing a Gamers Group” session presented by Amy Alessio and Joe Torres with the Schaumburg (IL) Public Library. In the library, teens choose games, systems, and test out new equipment through open play. Torres explained that they began gaming at the library with open play, trying out new products at each group meeting. “It left the floor open to all our teens to give suggestions....What I found is that a lot of the games we offer are games that they have.” That's fine with the kids, who come not for the experience of playing new games but for “the social aspect”—the opportunity to play games in multiplayer mode against other youngsters. In the future, Torres plans for the gaming group to include integrating elements like a Facebook group or a MySpace page as “an avenue for the gamers to interact online.” He also hopes to offer game design classes, podcasting and vodcasting, and more structured tournaments.

We're in Ur Library Bein Ur Books

The benefits of role play and ways to relate it to books was the theme of my presentation, “We're in Ur Library Bein Ur Books: Making and Using Book-Based RPG's with Middle Schoolers.” A Harry Potter fan, I was surfing the Internet several years ago and came across a play-by-post role-playing game—a collaborative story in which each player takes on a character from J.K. Rowling's fictional world and narrates that character's thoughts and actions. I was amazed that my fellow players were teens. This discovery made me look at the game in a new light. They were writing, and because you can't play in isolation—you have to read what the other characters are doing—they were reading a lot. And there was a whole meta-level where they were commenting on each others' writing. I was a teacher for five years, and I know how hard it is to get kids to do that with schoolwork, but they were doing it for Harry Potter and having fun. The blogging site LiveJournal plays host to many play-by-post role-playing games based on everything from Harry Potter to The Scarlet Pimpernel, and it offers an easy way for teachers and librarians to set up games for their students. Fandom games are engaging because they're about characters the students love. It's also possible to make successful games using non-copyrighted characters like those in folk tales, or even original characters within a given genre, like superheroes.

Interactive Fiction

Some other great tie-ins to gaming and libraries, especially school libraries, were echoed by presenter Christopher Harris with the School Library System of Genesee Valley (NY), BOCES, who presented “You See an Interactive Fiction Game in Front of You...” He talked about “text-based” adventure gaming, also known as interactive fiction or IF (www.microheaven.com/IFGuide/). Where “text adventures originally defined gaming,” according to Harris, “choose your own adventure” titles such as The Abominable Snowman can be listened to on iPods. “If teachers or librarians are looking for games that are based more on text than on visuals, this is a good place to start and it's slightly in between a game and a book...text-adventure gamers interact with the story through reading and writing.” Using a program called inform7 allows students to write their own interactive fiction games (inform-fiction.org/17/Welcome.html).

According to all the speakers, gaming is truly a library service whose time has come. Resonating with two generations—today's kids, and their 30-something parents who grew up playing the first generation of video games—games break down barriers between the library and the community and make the library a welcoming place for a whole new group of users. And the skills that games develop are exactly what young people need to be empowered participants in the rapidly changing world of new media.