Gaming in Schools & Libraries Conference

The “Women in Games” conference, canceled. TOTAL BUMMER. But that got me thinking…

click for the story on the cancellation...

While this idea is not original and ALA has hosted similar events, I still feel like the time is right for an annual Gaming in Libraries conference. There are so many issues to address: Collection Development, Literary elements of gaming, diversity issues, how gaming can be used as an advocacy tool, gaming & information literacy, gaming across the curriculum (and gaming as a teaching tool), gaming as way to boost circulating materials collections, gaming as a marketing tool, LoFi gaming (board & card games). There could also be lots of related technology elements: mobile phones & library service (make no mistake, foursquare is a game), implementing gaming into your Library 2.0 program (think Farmville), QR codes in schools & libraries (a scavenger hunt game), texting as a teaching tool. We could also expand it to Gaming in Schools & Libraries Conference, which would more than double the opportunities for both conference programs and attendance. The issues are there, and the thinkers/presenters are there. This would probably also be one of the more fun conferences around, because at its root, games are fun.

Here’s my questions: Is the time right? Would you attend? If your library didn’t sponsor your attendance, would you still be interested? How pumped would you be to play Xbox Live’s 1 v 100 with a roomful of teachers and librarians? (YOU KNOW we’d take top score)

This entry was posted by JP on March 31, 2010 at 12:47 am, and is filed under event, link, news. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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#1 written by JP 1 year ago

Or do we learn from the “failure” of the Women in Games conference, that video game conferences with such a narrow application won’t work?

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#2 written by Jmgold 1 year ago

The time is absolutely right and I would be very interested in attending, although poverty might force me to stay away. if that’s the case I would be very sad. Course I’d still be on Xbox Live for that 1 vs. 100 game.

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#3 written by Kimberly 1 year ago

I would absolutely attend. I’d find a way. The offerings I’ve seen at library conferences on games have been very thin. I attended AASL’s National Conference and there were only 3 or 4 gaming-related sessions, with much content duplicated across them and, as far as I could tell, no discussion at all of how gaming actually supports the curriculum.

There is already a Games in Education symposium which I have thus far been unable to attend (and probably will miss this year as well, as I’m planning for ALA ). A lot of interesting things are happening in Games in Education; a lot of interesting things are happening in Games in Libraries. 8bitlibrary is one of the few places trying to put these two fields together. (I actually think addressing this gap is going to be the focus of my master’s project.)

It might be worth contacting the Games in Education folks to see if they’d like to do a joint conference in 2011 or 2012.

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- #4 written by JP 1 year ago
  
  Kimberly wins the 8bitlibrary.com gold star of the day for that suggestion!
  
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  - #5 written by Kimberly 1 year ago
    
    And, as a classic nerd, a gold star is all I need to have a good day.
    
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#6 written by GMLGeek 1 year ago

Y’know, if an annual Gaming in Libraries thing got big enough, it might just get absorbed by the ALA. At least if they really practice what they preach about expanding library relevance and visibility in communities they will.

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#7 written by Jenny Levine 1 year ago

Speaking as the person who organized ALA’s two Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposia, I can tell you that ALA is absolutely interested in putting on another one. The problem for 2009 was that we lost the up-front money the original ALA unit provided, and we couldn’t find a way to fund another symposium in such a bad economy.

That said, we planned to re-examine the issue later this year to see if we can do something in 2011 (we’ve already missed our window for 2010). We can talk about expanding the scope, moving the location (although Chicago’s central location worked well for us), and other options for making this happen.

If you want to attach it to an event, we could look at Annual as one possibility. There’s been a forum in the Games and Gaming community on ALA Connect for this topic, just waiting for a good discussion – http://connect.ala.org/node/66247/og/forum/9821. Let’s figure out how to make this happen.

Jenny Levine
ALA staff
jlevine [at] ala.org

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#8 written by Beth Gallaway 1 year ago

I think partnering with Games Learning & Society would be prudent (they do an annual session in WI). I’d also strongly suggest a virtual component, even if it’s just one track – perhaps OPAL could be used for this? and podcasting ALL sessions.

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- #9 written by JP 1 year ago
  
  Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! I think combining everyone’s suggestions, including partnering with outside educational organizations and the ALA, is the right thing to do.
  
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