The Library Game

When I was in high school a boy would not want to be caught learning to type. Today a teen boy would not impress his peers with an inability to find his way around a keyboard with more than one finger pecking. Today’s youth type rapidly, they text continually and socially communicate with friends and friends-of-friends via the keyboard.

Using the keypad and monitor to enter the library can bring youth to the library to obtain information, even if they don’t have a car to drive. They will do this, if entering the library and obtaining information is a skill similar to that of searching Google, finding a book on Amazon and learning the rules of the online games they play.

In our LIS requisite orientation session last August we played team games in the physical world. We warmed to it as a socially collaborative tool and because we participated in a collective intelligence (38) we performed better together than we would have solo. We will continue to have the opportunity to collaborate during the next two years in a way that will create a field of knowledge that is greater than the sum of its parts. This is the theory of knowledge and library access through the ‘third world’ of online gaming.

I’ve read some very good things about gaming and libraries. Currently I’m re-reading Nancy Courtney’s compilation, Library 2.0 and Beyond, in which David Ward talks about gaming as a “tool for collaboration”. References in the chapter include articles on Harvard offering law courses in a virtual world, games as a ‘third world’ in the information architecture of the future, games reshaping education and one titled, “From Dewey to World of Warcraft, Libraries and Digital Games”.

A Kurt Squire & Constance Steinlkuehler article in Library Journal discusses how, in the online gaming environment,"Participants don’t care about identity, age, race, gender, class or nationality" (39). He goes on to say that although no one is teaching the courses he describes as “affinity space”, those with expertise are recognized and greatly valued (39). The librarian in this role can function as a higher level character in the information seeking game (115).

Libraries are redefining themselves in the virtual world of the Internet, using gaming structures to create learning communities. Students can experience collaborative learning as the library avails itself of the technology which defines the world in which the student lives.

References

Courtney, N. (Ed.). (2007). Library 2.0 and beyond: innovative technologies and tomorrow's user. Westport, Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited.

Foster, Andrea L. “Harvard to Offer Law Course in ‘Virtual World.’” Chronicle of Higher Education 53, no. 3 (September 8, 2006)

Hinton, Andrew. “We Live Here: Games, Third Places, and the Information Architecture of the Future.” Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 32, no. 6(2006)

Kirriemuir, John. “From Dewey to World of Warcraft, Libraries and Digital Games.” Presentation at TICER course Digital Libraries a la Carte: New Choices for the Future, August 25, 2006

Skate Parks

****** I visited Ortonville yesterday, enjoying a cool afternoon walk and observing the downtown area. The hub of activity was clearly located at the Skate Park in the downtown area. The sounds of wheels, skateboards, bikes and rollerblades overrode good natured calls and kidding between the kids, roughly aged between 11 and 16.

The reason for choosing Ortonville for my afternoon outing was the construction of the Brandon Township Community Park. They recently received a $75,000 grant from the Land & Water Conservation Fund and Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The community has been in the process of funding the recreational area with donations from private residents and local businesses. A committee was formed in 2000 dedicated to providing quality recreation programs. The resultant 47 acre parcel of former farmland, containing fields for soccer, baseball and football, pavilions, play and picnic areas is beautiful and peaceful. The only ones using the park yesterday was a small wedding party in one of the pavilions. It would be way too far for the kids of downtown Ortonville to walk. The kids were more interested in the skate park in the middle of downtown and so was I.

As a child growing up in the fifties, in a suburb east of Detroit, I loved to roller skate. Bike-riding came fast on its heels and claimed my time until I graduated to automobiles and other interests. We didn’t have skateboards or roller blades in those days. I got on a pair of rollerblades once last summer. I probably won’t try that again.

But I am impressed with the agility and balance of today’s youth in handling the hills and valleys of the Skate Parks and any other non-flat surface they can find. They can’t find many in the Village. Why don’t we do something about that?

I’ve been doing some research on the Internet (so what’s new?) and have found that the idea of a Skate Park has been making the rounds but no one is stepping forward to assume responsibility for building one.

I’ve never been afraid of a challenge. After all, I am in the final stages of estate settlement for my ex-husband who died last year. I won’t go into detail other than to reveal that I never knew that many pieces of paper and other ‘stuff’ would fit into one house.

Is anyone interested in joining with me? I’ve got some ideas and all that research I’ve been doing this spring and summer. I also have a location in mind and there are some ways we could gear the project to several different areas of interest that would place us in line for some Grant Funds.

See you around Lake Orion.