So, you are reading this on the OLD 8bitlibrary.com. 8bitlibrary.com no longer redirects here (to blog.8bitlibrary.com). Here’s JP’s “farewell” post to the blog…but first, some nostalgia…

In 2009, JP Porcaro and Justin Hoenke met for drinks and found out they were both ALA Emerging Leaders for the upcoming year. Our bromance continued with daily IM chats until Justin one day said:

Let’s start a librarygarden of gaming.

So, we did. We really started taking off and getting hits when Justin made a joke on twitter:

Let’s all get library tattoos.

And I was like, YEA LET’S DO IT. And that’s how this whole thing happened…Justin & I would brainstorm crazy ideas, and if they were just crazy enough to work, i’d #makeithappen. So we started Project Brand Yourself a Librarian, librarians shared it like crazy, and a bunch of librarians got tattoos.

So from the very start, within weeks, we strayed from the original “library garden of gaming” idea.

We came up with other crazy ideas and made them happen:

• ALA DANCE PARTY (and other parties like the NJLA ones and the ACRL Social)
• #TeamRock8
• The Adventures of Flat Justin
• Think Tank (which grew into ALA Think Tank, facebook’s largest active group of international ideas-sharing for librarians)
• Cranky Kong, librarianship’s oldest blogger.

We also had lots of fabulous contributors, almost all the top names in the field of “gaming in libraries” either wrote for us or were considered part of the team.

And then we shifted from crazy ideas to more traditional ones:

• We ran the petition to start a the ALA Comic Book & Graphic Novel Member Interest Group, and with the help of everyone who sent in an online signature, we made it happen at ALA Mid Winter 2011.
• We ran National Unconference Day ’11, a hybrid online & in-person conference. We had fabulous lightning talks at it by Michael Stephens, Jaime Hammond, and Eli Neiberger.
• We became the largest active source for game reviews for librarians, and eventually lead the charge to make GameRT a reality.
• We hosted Retro Gaming Days all over New Jersey.
• Got involved in Buy India a Library.
• Launched #makeithappen and inspired MIH.
• Launched #libgaming (which has since died, sad sad…)
• We ran webinars.

In our heyday, we were getting about 4000 clicks a day (which is BIG for library blogs), and alexa.com had us listed as one of the highest trafficked library blogs. The only blogs that were getting higher traffic at the time were the ‘official’ ones; the LJ, SLJ and some of ALA ones…

Lots of success here in a short period of time, maybe moreso than any other library blog. So why did we let blog.8bitlibrary.com “die”?

• All of our contributors are doing other things.

We all got busy. 8bitlibrary lead us to publication deals, speaking gigs, new jobs, and new leadership opportunities. Now that GameRT exists, we have a more formal place to do our gaming-in-libraries work.

• Blogging is boring.

We should have figured out from day 1 that blogging was not what we were about. We were a successful BRAND, but never a good BLOG. All of the successes I listed had more to do with 8bitlibrary as a brand, and less to do with blog.8bitlibrary.com.

• WordPress sucks.

The blog was constantly marred by slow load times, login problems for contributors, and errors on the user and contributor end. Anyone who was a frequent contributor knows what I mean when i say “500 Internal Server Error”

• We have better places to “publish”

Blogging is NOT publishing. We’ll get some game reviews actually published via GameRT hopefully soon!

SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE 8BITLIBRARY?!

When Justin posted this on the new 8bitlibrary.com, people FREAKED out (they though we were killing everything, the facebook page, the twitter, the tumblr (which is now the main site) and the blog) and I had to write this.

Where we’re left without the blog is where we always belonged: as the party people of librarianship. So we’re still gonna do all the stuff we used to do, like ALA DANCE PARTY, Project Brand Yourself a Librarian, and all the Think Tanks and subsequent parties…but we won’t have to worry about keeping up this illusion that we’re a “professional” library blog.

We’re still here.

#partyhard and #makeithappen,

JP

The Emerging Leaders poster sessions. Justin & I mentored a fabulous team this year and they are presenting a poster session on Video Game Collection Development. [rsvp on facebook] [add to your conference schedule]

ALAplay 2011 will be a fun event cosponsored by LITA, the Games and Gaming Member Interest Group, and the Comic Book and Graphic Novel Member Interest Group. [rsvp on facebook] [add to your conference schedule]

8bitlibrary.com‘s ALA DANCE PARTY 2011. Get down, make love. #partyhard. [rsvp on facebook] [add to your conference schedule]

ALA Facebook After Hours Social. Good times in the French Quarter. [rsvp on facebook]

Emerging Leaders Summit. A few 8bitlibrary.com contributors are speaking. [rsvp on facebook] [add to your conference schedule]

YALSA’s Pecha Kecha: Teens and Technology. JP aka me is speaking and I need people to cheer me on so I can present it again at the ALA Virtual Conference. [add to your conference schedule]

OK

every library blogger insists on giving you advice on what to pack and what not to forget for #ala11. these posts all say the general same things:

• don’t forget comfortable shoes
• be sure to pack enough business cards
• don’t forget to eat

We feel these are usually short-sighted and/or boring suggestions. here’s some more important ones:

1. MAKE IT HAPPEN. aka #makeithappen
2. AVOID INCEPTION BY SLEEPING BEFORE YOU GET ON YOUR FLIGHTS!! This will also help protect you from extractors. Don’t drink anything on the plane in order to avoid extractors from sedating you en route.
3. PARTY REALLY HARD EVERY NIGHT. Rest during the conference sessions. Sleep when you get home from the conference.
4. GET AS MANY CONFERENCE RIBBONS AS POSSIBLE AND MAKE A CONFERENCE SASH OUT OF THEM. It’ll be a fabulous accessory for your many Supermarket Sweep-style exhibit hall runs.
5. BUY A ROUND OF DRINKS FOR 8BITLIBRARY.COM CONTRIBUTORS. Toast to the Nyan Cat.
6. START YOUR MORNING WITH A RED BULL AND A BUMPING JAM BY LUDACRIS. Because access to books should be Ludaversal.

The Zukunftswerkstatt Gaming Roadshow comes to the District Central Library Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg

Another installment of the Zukunftswerkstatt Gaming Roadshow (which I posted about in the past here) happened over the last two days in Berlin, Germany.  I had the opportunity to once again talk via Skype with Christoph Deeg and the wonderful librarians who attended the program on Saturday morning.  I’ll turn the mic over to Christoph:

The gaming Roadshow is a great success! We had many participants. In addition to children and adolescents, and adults were also interested librarians from Berlin and Potsdam and the surrounding area as Fürstenwalde with it.

In the afternoon at 16:30 we had a special guest at the road show, we were visited by the Ambassador of the United States, Philip D. Murphy and his wife and a son. The ambassador did not want to just talk and see what we do so but he wanted to play above all. And thus he was or his family for a half hour of the Road Show.

US Ambassador Philip D. Murphy and Councilman Dr. Jan give Kinect a shot

Many thanks to Christoph and everyone else involved with Gaming Roadshow.  It’s always an amazing experience for me to talk to others about gaming.  I learn so much from you and I take that and do my best to translate what I’ve learned for my patrons here in Portland, ME.  If you haven’t checked out what Christoph and the Gaming Roadshow are doing, click on the link above (use Google Chrome and Google Translate for wonderful results!) and enjoy.

And to end, I can’t think of anything else more fitting:

Gaming! Love!

Michelle’s FYI stats: Michelle Boule is a Geek Librarian living in Houston, TX. Michelle was recently a Social Sciences Librarian at the University of Houston. She now spends her time writing and consulting while trying to care for her growing brood of children* and large dogs. In 2008, she was named a Library Journal Mover and Shaker. Michelle has created online learning environments, taught in-person classes, presented on a wide variety of technology and training subjects, shelved books, read books, written articles, organized unconferences, and participated in subversive activities in an effort to save the world. She has a booki coming out in the Fall on entitled Mob Rule Learning: camps, unconferences, and trashing the talking head from Information Today, Inc..  Michelle can be found online at A Wandering Eyre, http://wanderingeyre.com.

Let’s start with her post on Why You Should Participate in National Library Unconference Day ’11.

And here’s her prezi titled Planning an Unconference.



I’m getting really excited for Unconference Day!!! Our kick-off set of lightning talks (by library greats like Eli Neiburger, Jaime Hammond, and Michael Stephens) will be offered free courtesy of the ALA Learning Round Table. And even if you can’t organize an unconference of your own, we’ll have a full-day live chat unconference at tinychat.com/8bitlibrary, a twitter unconference via hashtag #libuncon, and you can still check out the free lightning talks at 1 pm EDT. May 2nd, 2011, be there, #makeithappen – JP

*everyone say YAY to Michelle for recently adding another child to her clan!!!! I got to see the pictures and the baby is so beautifulllll.

Libraries from all over the country are going to be screening our free keynote set of lightning talks and then running their own Unconferences, Staff Development days, and BarCamps.

We encourage you to organize your own at your place of employment, or via your library school student association, or your regional library cooperative or state library association.

For those of you who can’t #makeithappen, 8bitlibrary.com will also be hosting two digital unconferences: our twitter unconference will be at hashtag #libuncon, and our live chat unconference will be at tinychat.com/8bitlibrary.

HOW do you sign up?????? Leave a comment here with your name and what uncon you’ll be physically organizing or participating in (including those of your who will be participating in the chat room unconference or twitter unconference). Please use a real email address when you leave the comment, because I’ll be using those addresses to send out a reminder email to you a few days beforehand!

And check back here at 8bitlibrary.com every day this week. We have a slew of new #libuncon content!!

So what’s going on?

We already “sold out” of the 100 free tickets for the librar* drinkup, had to add more tix for folks to RSVP (note – if anyone wants to sponsor a tab at the bar – we’re listening!).

Saturday, March 12th @ 6pm at the Lustre Pearl (97 Rainey St)

And SXSW Interactive respects its library contingency and is holding an official meetup (yea, it’s OFFICIAL): Librarians and Technology Meet Up.

Sunday, March 13 @ 12:30 -1:30 (noonish) at the Hilton, Room 615AB

(it’s posted so places, it’s hard to keep up):

http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_IAP000501

http://austin2011.sched.org/event/b87ca030c0afb504729da17f018546c5

http://sxswlib11meetup-eorg.eventbrite.com/

Let’s get conversing about what tools/ pieces/and people we need to get at the table to make library stuff more amazingly awesome and less annoyingly archaically stove-piped systems.

If twitter is your thang:

Recently, I had the opportunity to Skype with Christoph Deeg, Julia Bergmann, and many other amazing librarians in Cologne, Germany about gaming in libraries during the Zukunftswerkstatt Gaming Roadshow event on February 15 and 16.  For the idea behind Zukunftswerkstatt, I’ll pass the mic to Christoph….

The roadshow is a mobile-future-library. The idea behind is to bring future-technologies such as gaming, mobile internet,  and eBooks to the librarians.  In the first step the roadshow is about the world of video games.  Together with their patrons librarians can try out different games.  After this they are asked to discuss the chances and the risks using games and then the possible next steps to integrate games into their daily business. In germany most of the public libraries rent games.
But most of the libararians do not know much about games and the culture behind them. We believe that in the future games and the internet will be the plattforms where cultural and scientific content is imparted/mediated. That means people will learn, play, work and create with video games – and of course they will have a lot of fun. Because of this we believe that libraries should start to think about gaming and develop new services for this.

What really interested me about the Zukunftswerkstatt Gaming Roadshow was the community and discussion aspect.  It brings people together not only to experience the games in libraries but to also encourage discussion on how libraries and patrons can work together to bring gaming into libraries.  Instead of us (librarians) running the show, it gives the power to our patrons and lets their opinion dictate the way we handle video games in the library.  Remember, we are the PUBLIC library, and the Zukunftswerkstatt Gaming Roadshow is showing us just how important our public can be.

• National Library Unconference Day ’11. What IS an unconference, you ask? Try out this video by Allen McGinley & I talking about our recent Remixing Libraries unconference, and check back often for more info. We’ll be posting how-to guides, videos, and tips on how to run a great unconference.
  

When?

• Save the date: May 2nd, 2011, 1pm EST. More info to follow this month.

Where?

• At your library for a staff development day. Or an unconference for a regional library cooperative. Maybe something hosted at a state library? Or hosted by your state or regional library association. A great place to hold an uncon for National Library Unconference Day ’11 is at an LIS school. It’s totally up to you!

Why?

• The sage-on-the-stage lecture presentation style of a traditional conference is losing relevance in our world of immediate communication. At an unconference, the participants are the experts, and ideas grow organically. I’ve watched this video over and over, and this is exactly the type of motivating event that the speaker is talking about!

Who?

We’ll be streaming a free keynote session to all participating librarians, libraries and library organizations. Our confirmed speakers so far include:

• Michael Stephens, Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois and founder of http://tametheweb.com/.
• Jaime Hammond, Reference and Serials Librarian at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury, CT., library-as-space advocate and chair of the ALA’s Emerging Leaders IG Steering Committee.
• Allen McGinley, Department Head in the Piscataway NJ Public Library, National Library Unconference Day ’11 organizer, Gaming for Children With Special Needs advocate, and leader of 8bitlibrary.com‘s #makeithappen initiative.
• JP Porcaro, aka me, founder of 8bitlibrary.com, Virtual Services librarian at New Jersey City University, and world’s self-described expert on Pokemon & libraries.
• Justin Hoenke, founder of 8BitLibrary.com, Teen Librarian at the Portland (ME) Public Library, contributor over at Tame The Web.
• Eli Neiburger, librarian in the Ann Arbor MI District Library, author of Gamers…in the Library?! The Why, What, and How of Videogame Tournaments for All Ages, Library Renewal board member, and Patron Saint of 8bitlibrary.com.

How?

• Soon enough, we’ll have a link up for you to sign up your unconference to receive the FREE keynote lightning talks webinar. For now, mark your calendars, organize your group, and get ready to change the world. Once you sign up, we’re imaging you’d use a computer + a projector to screen the keynote to your local participants, then you’d get to your individual unconference. We’ll have a constant digital conversation on Twitter via hashtag #libuncon. And we’re hoping people share what they learned and accomplished via blog posts and youtube videos!

MARK THOSE CALENDARS NOW, and #makeithappen! signed, JP & the 8bitlibrary.com team.

6 months ago i would have said “it’s the gaming-in-libraries blog”! And I’m not, 6 months later, saying that statement is wrong. But we’re about a bigger issue, and that is: “we’re the #makeithappen blog“.

In libraries, #makeithappen is a taking new exciting ideas and seeing them through to the end. It’s the blog about all the really cool new stuff people are actually doing in libraries.

I had the opportunity to watch the Joaquim Phoenix movie I’m Still Here thanks to the Netflix instant queue. It was a great documentary about Joachim trying to become a Hip-Hop star. I won’t give spoilers, but the end, to say the least, “leaves you wondering”.

Tonight, again because of the Netflix Instant Queue on Xbox, I got to see the 1998 documentary Wrestling with Shadows, which ultimately chronicles the end of Bret Hitman Hart’s WWF career, with the Montreal Screwjob being the crux of the story. Everyone KNOWS wrestling is scripted, and the movie takes you through the process of how wrestling IS scripted. However, the end of the movie is the story of a script gone wrong, where the person who was supposed to win was “screwed”. In the 90s wrestling era, this was a defining moment of “OMG, wrestling can be REAL sometimes!!!”.

When the movie started, I felt that the fact that a documentary was being recorded at the convenient moment when the ultimate wrestling “real” outcome (vs the usual fake wrestling) was proof that even at the time wrestling was “real”, it was also an elaborate hoax.

I suggested to my wife that this would be a great program for a library (like a book discussion, but with movies instead of books). Show both movies and have people discuss the fictional and the factual elements of both, and maybe try to decide which told a better fictional but factual story.

My wife said “this doesn’t belong in libraries“. There’s lots of dicks, boobs, balls, sex, and drug use in the Joachim movie after all, and the wrestling movie was full of violence: everything we love to censor.

I thought back to all the books I have read since becoming a librarian. Lots worse violence. Way more sex and drug use. Much more graphic violence. They are making a MOVIE out of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, after all! As an aside, that book was set right in the same historical period as the Montreal Screwjob.

I said to myself: WHY is it ok to have certain forms of “inappropriate” expression in books but not movies? Why do we treat some forms of media as sacred, and other forms as dirty?

This, of course, is also what 8bitlibrary.com is about. We believe that storytelling media shouldn’t be judged just because it is presented in a certain media format and not another.

And so, I ask, how have libraries dealt with “controversial” content in one form of media that is less-controversial in other forms? We already know that some library board in the middle of nowhere decided to ban their library from showing the Michael Moore movie Sicko just because they didn’t agree with the argument the movie made. I’m sure they already own books that make similar arguments, and no one cares. Cranky Kong, Donkey Kong’s grandfather, would probably applaud their ban.

So, should libraries ban content in some formats and not others? And, do you feel like 8bitlibrary.com is just a “gaming blog”, or do you feel like we talk about gaming so much because we are touching on an issue that is really relevant to current libraries?

I wrote an article in January 2011′s School Library Journal along with 8bitlibrary.com contributor Beth Gallaway on the USA Supreme Court Case on First Amendment Rights and how they apply to video game content (vs, say, the same content in a Bugs Bunny cartoon). Same issue, different media format.

I would really love to get a convo going, either here, on twitter, or on facebook, about what you think!!!

Thanks for reading, true believers.

#makeithappen!