Dateline: 4/123/2010: Arlington, Va.

So here we are at the Computers in Libraries conference at the lovely Hyatt Regency Crystal City. Librarian JP and I have been here for the past few days, meeting a lot of wonderful people, attending a lot of great presentations, and learning.

Early this afternoon, the two of us went to a presentation given by Bob Beck, David Lisa, and Michael Porter, entitled: Bridging Community Research, Skill-Building, & Entertainment with World of Warcraft & Libraries. These three gentlemen are all avid players of the famous massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (mmorpg) known as World of Warcraft. The presentation began with a brief introduction to WoW, in order to explain the game to non-players. (from a show of hands, more than 3/4ths of the audience did not play WoW)

David Lisa kicked off the conversation by explaining some of the game’s more technical aspects.  Currently, WoW has over 11.5 million subscribers.  Considering that the game has been out for over 5 years, that is an impressive number, by video game standards. One thing that continues to bring new members to WoW is the ever-changing nature of the game. New content is being added continuously, with new patches and expansion sets being released all the time. David explained that the game is not at all difficult to learn, but does require a certain skill-set to play it well. One of the benefits of WoW is that it allows people to develop leadership skills by providing them with quests and dungeons raids. Leading a guild (one of WoW’s social groups) is one of the most difficult things to do in the game, and requires professional leadership abilities as well as a lot of time and attention. These and other social aspects of WoW have been researched extensively on sites such as: http://convergentsystems.pbworks.com, and by researcher Nick Yee. (http://www.nickyee.com)

Bob Beck continued the conversation by relating his own experiences with adopting a World of Warcraft program at his library. Bob explained how to get the administration to buy-in to projects like these. When approaching the higher-ups at his library, Bob began with a demo of WoW to show these administrators exactly what they were becoming involved with.  It was very important to them that this programing be free and available to patrons. Blizzard Entertainment, the company that provides World of Warcraft, could not have been easier to deal with. Blizzard’s main requirement was that there be one client per each computer. This enabled them to provide Bob’s library with 10-day trial memberships so that patrons could test the waters of WoW for free, before deciding if they wanted to join full-time.  For library programming, Bob scheduled on-line WoW events, such as brief quests and Player-vs-player tournaments for low-level users.  The program was a success, and brought many new people to WoW.

Michael Porter finished off the session by disclaiming any love for elves, fairies, or the fantasy genre in general. Michael was introduced to WoW as nothing more than a new form of social networking that he wanted to check out.  Despite not being a “gamer”, and not at all interested in fantasy, Michael became enamored of the social environment in WoW. As he began to notice a rich sense of community on this mmorpg, he was inspired to create a guild called: “Libraries and Librarians” on the Aerie Peak server. This guild has been a place for librarians and their families to gather on World of Warcraft and play together. The camaraderie of being in the same guild allows librarians to enjoy WoW and “talk shop”, not to mention the many networking possibilities. Taking part in online events gives librarians a pool of shared experiences, and allows colleagues from all over the world to help each other within the game.  Michael also spoke of the “Guild Banks” in WoW, which are a repository for guild members to share powerful items and weapons with each other, building a community of trust with others.  In the future, Michael foresees that much of the Internet might have a 3D interface, in the manner of online games such as WoW.

(and the back of Christa Burns' head) :P

From left to right: Michael Porter, David Lisa, Session Moderator Donna Scheeder, and Bob Beck

The session was wonderful, and I was highly impressed with the extent to which each of the speakers had gone in their research and advocacy of World of Warcraft. The presentation took something that would seem like a silly little addictive video game, and contextualized it as a very valid form of social media; a kind of networking software that encourages leadership, communities, and yes, even learning.

On a personal note, I recently quit World of Warcraft to pursue other games and pastimes. Now I’d really like to play again.

“Every time I try to get out, they Pull Me Back IN!“