we prefer video games
literacy
Gaming Can Make a Better World – Believe!
02 years ago
In gathering my resources for my presentation at NJLA Conference this year, I came across this awesome TED talk given by Jane McGonical, Director of Game Research and Developement at the Institute for the Future. She was one of the designers who worked on “I Love Bees“, the alternate reality game (ARG) to promote Halo 2, as well working on an independent basis to create ARGs designed to use game play “for good”.
BTW, she is also like my new gaming idol! (Don’t worry JP, you still definitely in the top ten!)
Anyway, she discussed the concept of connecting gaming and gameplay to real world problem solving. You can watch for yourself below, but she draws some very insightful and meanigful connections between the values, emotions, and experiences of the gamer and how those assets can be bridged to the real world in truly revolutionary ways. Put it this way, when she argues that if we want to solve the worlds problems we HAVE to spend more time gaming… she got my attention. That is a huge statement.
Hope you all find it as inspiring as I did and continue to remember that gaming has been, and continues to be, a much more rich, complex, and meaningful experience than stereotype and popular culture convey.
“What was the first story you experienced?” by Devin Burritt
02 years ago
Our guest post today comes from Devin Burritt, Associate Director at the Jackson Memorial Library in Tenants Harbor, ME. I’ve had the chance to sit down with Devin a few times and talk about games and libraries and I come away from every conversation feeling so inspired. -Justin
In library school I was often confronted with the question “what was the story that got you hooked on reading?” I would look at them and rack my brain for a suitable white lie answer. There was the Brian Jacques Redwall series that I sort of remember spending Saturdays in bed reading. Or Hardy Boys when we moved in second grade. But these were what I read to pass the time; they did not instill a passion for literature in me. In fact, I left children’s literature behind around fourth or fifth grade when I started reading adult novels by popular fiction authors such as Michael Crichton and Dean Koontz. Inevitably I would get an embarrassed face and tell my peers what I thought was the truth: I had just returned from two years in the Peace Corps where I lived without electricity so I read, a lot, and found that children’s and teen books were the most enjoyable way to pass the time. I always felt guilty, that everyone else had a lifelong passion for books marketed towards children and teens, while I was relatively new to the game.
One day, as I turned my brain off and snuck into the black hole of time that is Facebook, I saw a post from Justin Hoenke:
Question: why do we ask people “What was the first book you read?” when instead it should be “What was the first story you experienced?” For me, it was Final Fantasy III for the Super Nintendo.
Epiphany. I didn’t hesitate as I had before; I immediately knew it was Final Fantasy VII for the PSX. I played Final Fantasy VII with three of my best friends everyday in the summer between 8th and 9th grade in what can only be called a communal caffeine fueled storytime. The story was the most compelling, and confusing, one I had ever seen in my young life. When my PSX was out of the picture, I bought the PC version to play on my own. When my new copy of Windows XP wouldn’t play it in college, I found a hack that allowed for compatibility. Ever since that summer I played other turn based RPGs with pure abandon, 8-12 hours at a time until the work week starts or it is completed.
This made for an easy transition when I, later in life, discovered kid lit. For those of you unfamiliar with old school turn based rpgs, most of the stories were based on a hero with a humble background making an epic change in the world, –or an anti-hero–, while growing as a person themselves. What better crossover is there than children’s and teen literature, where the protagonist often has low expectations placed on them, is put in a difficult situation and expected to rise to the challenge changing themselves, the community, or the world?
Videogames, not books, got me hooked on stories.
Devin also just started a small video game collection at his library. Awesome!
ALA Comic Book & Graphic Novel Member Initiative Group: We did it, yo.
32 years ago
File this under #makeithappen.
We did it, yo.
As you know, 8bitlibrary.com (along with Robin Brenner of noflyingnotights.com) headed up a campaign to create an ALA Comic Book & Graphic Novel Member Initiative Group which would serve to unite all of the different “factions” within the Graphic-Novels-in-Libraries world.
Thanks to all of your help and support in getting the word out, we got all the signatures we needed and on Sunday January 9th 2011, the ALA’s Committee on Organization voted to make this group “official” in the ALA! John Chrastka of the ALA said I could announce the creation as “effective March 15th, 2011” so him, Robin & I, along with our ALA staff liaison Tina Coleman, could work out the deets.
I’ll add everyone who signed already into a list of people who want info on the group. If you didn’t sign but wanna be part of the group, just click here and send me an email using that form letting me know you want to be part of the group! Our first official meeting will be at ALA Annual 2011 in New Orleans, so please come out to that (as if you needed another reason to come to NOLA).
This is what happens when you cross comic books and @JustinLibrarian.
SO, what’s next for 8bitlibrary.com‘s #makeithappen initiative? At the ALA Mid-Winter meeting of the Games & Gaming MIG (which was attended by Brandon & I of team 8bit as well as a few members of the Emerging Leaders group on Video Games me & Justin are mentoring), we pretty much decided we’re going to move forward and turn the MIG into The ALA Games & Gaming Round Table. We’ll obviously keep you in the loop.
And one last thing: I’m running for ALA Council. You know I’m all about “make it happen” so I’d love if you gave me & my running mates a “thumbs up”:
Play Along
02 years ago
I was inspired to write this article after a discussion in the LibGaming Google group, of which I’m part. It was a lively discussion about what librarians should know about gaming, and there were lots of participants. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it, for what was said in that discussion certainly informed this article greatly.
If you’re a librarian, you do readers’ advisory. It may be a small part of your job, if you do cataloging or ordering or hold an administrative position. In fact, you may never do it while on work time, but if you work in a library, people (especially friends and family) are going to ask you if there are any good books out there. Conducting readers’ advisory at the family dinner table is no different than conducting readers’ advisory at the reference desk, and is part of the overall public service you perform as an information and media professional. Given this, you have to read. You have to sample from all genres and formats. You may not finish every book you start, but you need real experience with as much literature as you can get your hands on. Read-alikes, reviews, and guided tools found online can only go so far; effective readers’ advisory begins with reading.
Following this line of logic, effective gaming programs and advocacy begins with game play. If you’re planning on integrating games into your library’s offerings, you need to be at least an entry-level gamer.
You don’t have to be an expert on tactics and techniques for first-person shooters. You don’t have to have an encyclopediac knowledge of the classics and up-to-the minute know-how on new games. It’s not about being the best. It’s not about having a backlist of D&D characters at varying levels for use with multiple editions of the game. It’s about having an appreciation for the medium as an art form and a way to connect with others–and there’s no better way to do that than to actually experience the medium itself. Also, be an active gamer will give you more credibility when you advocate for gaming at your library; you’ll be able to bring your own experiences to the table along with the excellent research and professional writing done supporting games and gaming. What’s more, if you’re familiar with games and gaming, you’ll be able to actually play with your patrons during your game programs, just like I do.
Even if you don’t get into the action yourself, it doesn’t hurt having some know-how on basic mechanics shared by many of the most popular games, so that you can better assist your patrons on getting started with their game play.
You don’t even have to spend money on games to get into the hobby. Kotaku recently did a run down of the best free PC games. Maybe you can give some of these games a spin. If you have a friend that owns a gaming console, chances are they’ll have you over for a game night, or even let you borrow their equipment. Check around your community for gaming groups that get together for Dungeons and Dragons or other tabletop games. Gamers of any type are, for the most part, an enthusiastic lot who love to share their passion and welcome new members to fold. If you do end up having to take a financial plunge, don’t be afraid of buying used equipment and games from GameStop, eBay, or Amazon.
What games should you play? Well, as many of them as you can! Just like every book has its reader and every reader their book, there’s a game out there for everyone. If you’re a really competitive person, you may like Call of Duty: Black Ops or Halo: Reach for their online multiplayer modes. If big guns and tactical positioning isn’t your thing, and you prefer something a bit more fast-paced, then Super Street Fighter IV might be a good choice. Not up for that level of competition? Team Fortress 2 is one my favorites, because it’s just plain fun, even when you’re losing. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is already a popular game among your teens, most likely; why not give it a try yourself?
Like racing and fast cars? There’s lots of great racing games out there, both realistic (Need for Speed: Shift, Gran Turismo 5) and not (Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Blur, and Split/Second). Mario Kart is always a fun, cartoony racing game that makes a great centerpiece for a party. Maybe you love puzzles. There is no shortage of puzzle games out there, but if I might suggest the excellent Portal, or the rather addictive game Plants vs. Zombies, which while not strictly a puzzle game certainly fires the same neurons as a puzzle game would.
If you love fantasy and science-fiction and always wanted to live those types of stories, try these role-playing/adventure games: Dragon Age: Origins, the Mass Effect series, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, or any game with Final Fantasy or Zelda in the title.
Maybe you’ve played video games in the past and drifted away from the hobby. Well, I’ve excellent news for you. The Nintendo Wii has a feature called Virtual Console, which lets you purchase and play the old school classics for the consoles from the ’80s and ’90s. Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, and many others are right out your fingertips. Perhaps reconnecting with an old favorite is the best way to start your new gaming journey.
And to think, I just touched on video games! Board games are infinitely more varied. If you want something quick and easy, yet addictive and engaging, try Pictureka or In a Pickle. Chess, checkers, Connect Four, and Clue are old favorites that never fall out of popularity. I love Stratego because it’s highly tactical in its game play, much like the video games I enjoy. There’s also many, many card games out there, traditional and new. Collectible card games such as Magic: the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh are great. Go to your local Target or Wal-Mart and look at the board games; you’ll find lots to explore. Also, hit up FunAgain Games to see some excellent, less mainstream games. And by the way, Monopoly is so yesterday: Settlers of Cataan is where it’s at now.
Regardless of how you get into games or what games you get into, you may find this to be a hobby you enjoy and want to keep at. Even if you don’t become a gamer, you need to learn to play if you want to bring gaming into your library. You need to connect with the material, experience first-hand its value for education (both direct and indirect), understand why people love games, and be able to speak the gamer’s language (not the one used by hardcore competitors, necessarily: they make sailors and tattoo artists blush). You need an appreciation for the demographic you are serving and you need to be able to help users engage with games on their level.
So go ahead. Get gaming!
Your homework!
02 years ago
Hey 8bitlibrarians,
I’m teaching a webinar today for Infolink, NJ’s regional library cooperative, titled “Pokemon, Learning, and Libraries”. Once the talk is archived I’ll pop the link in this post for all to see!
Here’s the “homework” from the talk. This stuff is valuable even if you aren’t going to the webinar:
Let’s start with the link to Bulbapedia. Those guy are terrific!
Next is an amazingly inspirational talk about what motivates us as humans, send to me by the fantastic @pcsweeney.
Next up is video-games-in-schools guru James Paul Gee talking about how the communities that video game players build are effectively identical to our professional communities.
In the September 15, 2010 issue of New York Times Magazine, they ran a cover story on “Learning by Playing“.
James Paul Gee again, on the PBS show Frontline, describing how video games can help schools (and how the modern library could be considered “competition” to traditional schooling.)
My article in Booklist on starting a video game collection & running video game programming in your library.
And, last but not least, the slides, which look strange in the Google Doc viewer:
What Happened to Wellington: A One Book NJ Alternate Reality Game
02 years ago
As part of the One Book NJ initiative, each year four books are chosen around which NJ libraries will have discussions and programming as a way to promote literacy around a single book. A book is chosen in each traditional age population from children, YA, teen, and adult. This year’s adult title was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. So… we decided that we wanted to try something a little different in support of One Book NJ and do an alternate reality game (ARG).
As a brief background, an ARG is basically a game in which the movements, actions and goals take place in the real world. However, the other part of this equation is not only the real world application of the gaming elements, but that the “game world” is created by having a story in place that creates the “alternate reality”. The players as such are invited to be part of this story that is taking place in the real world and to themselves engage in the game play elements within that context. Also, there is usually a website created where information can be shared and disseminated, as well as a place for active players to be able to communicate and collaborate with each other to work on the different parts of the game.
ARGs have been becoming ever more popular as they are used to promote new video games, television programs, movies.. even jeans! These types of games work well for marketing new products and services because they actively engage the player or participant, and in many cases offer real world rewards for their participation. If you want to know more about them, or even play one yourself, check out ARGnet.
So… I proposed the idea of doing an ARG as a program to support the One Book NJ initiative to our professional staff, and they really seemed to like it! So for a few weeks we got together and discussed our story, the gameplay elements we wanted to incorporate and developed a timeline for how the game would progress. While being a little intimidated by the process at first (it is our first ARG after all!), we were able to get all the pieces in place by mid August, when we officially “launched the game”.
The story of the game goes something like this: In mid August, the library received a shipment of books that were to be used for programming for One Book NJ. Mysteriously, the books were not here more than two hours, before they went missing. We announced that the books were missing using our website and social networks and “asked” if anyone saw anything mysterious during that time, and to report it if they did. This basically began the story.
The story continued through updates to our website, twitter, and facebook, where we started receiving letters from a person identifying his/herself as “The Mystery Thief” and claiming responsibility for the theft of the books. Finally, we also created a separate website, off of our regular website, where people could visit to find updates and additional information related to the game.
We created ficticious notes with a font resembling magazine cut-out letters and posted them on the website as well. The letters contained hints to a live event during our town’s annual street festival. The event hinted at an opportunity for participants to be able to “find” the books. We also created a book display with additional copies of the book, and copies of the notes referencing our missing copies.
The live event took place on 9/11 during our town’s annual street festival. The library had a table and per the final letter we received, released a clue to the wherabouts of one book each hour. Needless to say, the live event went better than expected with more than thirty teens/tweens dashing around town working the clues to find the books. That day all six books that were hidden were found. When a player found a book, it was theirs to keep as a prize for finding it. It was really was a cool thing to be a part of.
Currently, the game is still going, with four books hidden after 9/11. These are the final four books that were taken by the “Thief”. The clues have been released, this time a little harder as we encrypted them with simple ciphers. We currently have a smaller core of kids working with them. As of yesterday (9/16), one had been found with three remaining. We may also add an element to the story arc and have players work on discovering who the mystery thief is.
This has really been a great experience for us, and a learning experience as well. It was amazing to watch as every copy of the book from our display was checked out, as well as have so many people talking about the book itself, and about reading it after this all started. The real goal of this whole thing was to promote the book, and one book NJ, within the context of the game. We really marvel at how well this was accomplished (considering, again, it was our first go at something like this.) Furthermore, it was an engaging program that promoted literacy and only cost us the copies of the books we gave away.
Interest in our game? Here are some links you can use to see how we conducted the game:
http://www.cranburypubliclibrary.org (our main website, a WordPress blog, where we started our game with posts to the site) – start with the 8/18 post
http://www.cranburypubliclibrary.org/wellington – this was the companion site that was setup to allow players to immerse themselves the alternate reality, follow what was going on, and obtain information.
http://www.twitter.com/cranburypl – Our Twitter account where we posted information about the game, and tried to build buzz toward our live event.
If you are interested in seeing how another library approached doing an ARG, check out the Finksburg branch of the Carroll County Public Library (MD) and their games: The Mystery Guest and Find Chelsea. They did a really awesome job in both story development and incorporation of digital media (esp. video) and were an inspiration for us in developing our own ARG.
Any questions.. just email me
-Doug
Simple & Easy Shared Library Ideas (via Infolink)
32 years ago
Mary Martin, director of the Long Hill Public Library in NJ recently did a poll on the listserv for Infolink, one of our regional library cooperatives in NJ, and the results were so good I had to share them with you 8bitlibrary.com readers! Hope you can pass these ideas on as well!
NJ has a truly great library community.
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Simple & easy shared library ideas – August 2010
Ways to Engage Patrons
Front Desk Raffle
Run a fun contest at the circ desk every few months (e.g. get a quote from a book, display it and have patrons guess origin of quote. Those who guess correctly are entered into a drawing to win something simple (a gift card to Starbucks, DD, etc)
Raffle Ticket Inside Book
Variation of above, but put a “raffle” ticket inside books so people will be surprised when they find the ticket. (Bestsellers, hot movers, etc). The raffle ticket could even ask people for their opinion of the book.
Summer storytime
Does your town have a pool or a lake? There’s no law that says storytime must always be offered at the library. One library does a special storytime at the pool during the summer.
Book Bingo for the Whole Family
“Join us to play Bingo and win a book! All ages welcome, parents and grandparents too! No registration required.” All you need is some refreshments and some books as prizes (they use donated books so there is no cost aside from the refreshments). This has been very popular – the library who ran this had over 70 people in July.
Adult Summer Reading Program
A librarian writes: Based on this year’s water theme, we expended to the elements in general. We asked people to read a book or watch a DVD concerning the elements. We provided a list of suggestions to get them going. For each title, they fill out an entry slip for a drawing. We’ll do a drawing for some mugs at the end of August.
Teen summer reading program
At Long Hill we run both a teen and an adult summer reading program. For each book the patron reads or listens to, they fill out a raffle ticket. We draw winners weekly, and they win either a mug or a book (we use donated books as prizes). At the end of the summer we have one grand prize teen winner and one grand prize adult winner, each win a $25 gift card to Borders. We also offer the option for the patron to review the book, and we post their reviews on our library blog.
Storytime for Grownups
Because why should kids have all the fun?
Blind Date with a Book
In late January/early February, wrap up some books in brown paper, decorate with Valentine’s Day theme and encourage patrons to choose one to take home. Long Hill did this last year, it was fun and patrons enjoyed the opportunity to check out a book they might not otherwise have chosen.
Happy Holidays from the Library Staff!
Engage the staff by asking them to recommend holiday or winter themed books or DVDs. Then create a bookmark with their recommendations and give it out to library patrons.
Sharing Our Knowledge w/ Patrons
Staff Picks/May We Recommend?
Display backlist titles or staff picks that people may not have had a chance to read, at the front desk. You’d be surprised at how the staff picks fly off the desk. One caveat: pick books that are in good shape with interesting cover art. They are more likely to catch patrons’ interest.
If You Like cards in the stacks near popular authors
“If you like James Patterson you might also like….” these have been very popular at our library, I am happy to share the cards with anyone who wants to use and/or modify them.
Help patrons find their way around Nonfiction with shelf end cards that include not only the Dewey numbers but the subject patrons will find within that Dewey range – e.g 910.202 – 940.54 Geography, Travel, Ancient History or 600 – 618.24 Nutrition & diets, health & medicine
Recent Returns cart
In front of the circ desk, we have a cart where we put recently returned new books. We deliberately put the cart next to the book drop at the desk, because right after people drop off their old set of books is when they’re looking for new stuff to read. It cuts down on shelving, gives people a smaller section of books to browse.
“Bestsellers You Haven’t Read Yet”
Create a new section right next to New Fiction (or even use a folding bookcase or cart in front of the circ desk) with colorful books by big authors (Grisham, Roberts, Patterson, Picoult etc). You could even do a variation on the theme and do a “Best Books You Haven’t Heard Of” or a “Staff Picks” section. Assign someone to keep the display fresh and replenish it when necessary.
Get those oversized books circulating!
A librarian writes: “One thing we do is combine our browsing shelf with two lower shelves, and we choose a selection of oversized books there. Our oversized books tend not to go out as much as the other books, mainly because they are shelved separately. By showcasing them, not only do they go out, but people will go to the oversize shelves more than before.”
Oversized art books
One library I visited has a special set of shelving near the circ desk where they display oversized art books. As soon as they created this special section, the circulation of this type of book skyrocketed.
Summer Reading Lists
Make sure you have printouts of the local schools’ summer reading lists (both required, and recommended), and put them in binders. It may also be nice to post links to the reading lists on your library’s web site. We didn’t have the K – grade 5 recommended reading lists printed out until one of our staff members mentioned that she was getting a lot of requests for them. So I talked to the elementary school librarian and got the lists, then printed them & posted on our website.
Creative use of volunteers
Reading Buddies (teen volunteers)
Teen volunteers come in to read to little kids. Great all year round but especially during the summer when you have all those teens who want to volunteer
Computer Tutors (adult volunteers with computer skills)
Adult volunteers who have computer skills come to the library once a week at a set time, and help whoever comes in with their questions. It’s been very successful at Westwood Library and they’ve gotten great feedback from their patrons.
Another library described a similar program, PC Tutoring. They offer one-on-one computer tutoring to patrons twice a month, on several PC basics.
Better Communication with Patrons
Ask patrons for help in maintaining your collection
Patrons complaining about DVDs, audio CDs not working properly? You can create a simple slip asking patrons “Help us keep our collection in good repair” and including checkmarks where they can indicate what is wrong with the item. Then train staff to look for those checkmarks when an item is returned. And clean/repair item before it is reshelved.
Ask for what you need in your answering machine message
At Long Hill, we noticed that when people left messages for us at the front desk they usually failed to give us the info we needed (e.g. if it was a renewal) or they would be crystal clear in their message up until they told us their last name, which always ended up sounding like “Blarfengar.” So we changed our answering message to say “We’re sorry we missed your call. Please leave a message with your name, and please spell out your last name for us. Provide your phone number and your request. We’ll return your call as soon as we can.” This friendly message that clearly tells them what info we needed from them. It has cut down on the head-scratching we were doing when we checked our messages.
“You don’t have enough mysteries.”
One librarian writes: I met an elderly gentleman at a community event. He told me he stopped using our library because we didn’t have many mysteries. When I asked him for more details I learned that he thought the only mysteries we owned were on the New Book shelves. So now we have a sign on our New Mysteries shelves that says “We have over 7,500 mystery novels and many others available from other libraries at no charge…”
Cheap Advertising/Marketing
Use printable business cards to advertise services. For instance, if you want to promote Reference USA you can print business cards and hand them out to business patrons for them to file in their wallet, where they might actually have a chance of finding it when they need it.
Contact your local newspaper and find out if they have “community blogs.” Long Hill’s local newspaper encouraged us to start a blog with them. We use it to promote library events and what is interesting is that the newspaper staff read our blog, so occasionally they will print an article in the paper about the library even though we didn’t send them a press release – they just take the info from our blog.
At Long Hill we get BookPage book review magazine (for patrons) and we subscribe to the NextReads database (providing 21+ book related email newsletters people can sign up for.) When BookPage comes we put a sticker on it saying “Like what you read here? Sign up for NextReads for even more great recommendations.” To increase use of NextReads newsletters we also created easy sign up sheets and put them all around the library (including in our New Book binder) to encourage people to sign up. (We also use NextReads for our monthly children’s events email newsletter.)
Tax Forms
As you know the State of New Jersey stopped providing tax forms and instructional booklets this year. One of Long Hill’s staff members suggested we print out a couple copies of the instructional booklet, put them in binders and allow patrons to check them out for 7 days. This was a great way for us to serve the patrons
Easy Technology Tools
A librarian writes “We are a small library and only have 4 public Internet computers. We also have a large number of latchkey kids. This summer we decided to implement separate adult and juvenile usage times. Adults get their time on the computers from 10:30 to 12:30 and kids get their time from 2 to 4. Now we don’t have adults complaining about the noisy kids at the computers with them, and can guarantee that kids won’t be bothered by adults during their designated time period.”
Digital frame
You can get a cheap digital frame and put pictures from library events on it. Long Hill has this at our front desk. The kids especially are mesmerized by this – they look for themselves and their friends in the pictures.
Mario Learns a Lesson
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“bit and run” — Mario’s Ladder from Cory Godbey on Vimeo.
I saw this on Topless Robot today. Corey Godbey, if you don’t know, is an amazing artist who curated a collection of Where the Wild Things Are inspired art entitled “Terrible Yellow Eyes.” He’s also illustrated many folk and fairy tales. His work and interests are a lovely intersection of gaming, art, and storytelling, which is a wonderful model for libraries to follow.
Digital Distribution for Libraries
7This post was originally going to be a review of the Rock Band Network/Rock Band Music Store for Xbox 360. Since the start of 8bitlibrary.com, JustinLibrarian and I have sweated over the answer to this question: how can libraries develop a successful video game collection when so many new games are reliant on DLC (which Nintendo, Sony, AND Microsoft have all set up as closed distribution systems completely controlled by them). How can a library, which has a goal of circulating media, circulate content so closed and controlled that it is impossible to use by anyone except the person who purchased it?
File this under “We don’t have all the answers.”
And, of course, librarians across the country are wrestling with this same question, albeit for other forms of media. How can we distribute digital music when iTunes (& to a lesser extent, Amazon and the like) have already taken away our ability to do that? While there are some very expensive (and, in my opinion, very clunky and not-iTunes-like) vendor-controlled options such as Overdrive, Naxos Music, & Freegal, this is just a “patch” that we have while we, as a library community, decide to either get serious about digital distribution or continue to tread water.
A current trending topic of concern in libraries is eBook distribution. How can we loan an eBook on an eBook reader if that content is closed and controlled by a large corporation?
Along that “we don’t have all the answers” line, I decided to go to an expert on the topic, Mr. Libraryman Michael Porter. He has wrestled with the larger distribution issue, just as we are on the smaller (albiet still gigantic) issue of game content distribution. So I asked him,
- How do you feel libraries will be distributing digital media in 2015?
He gave this well-reasoned response:
I imagine two most likely scenarios with little gray in between the potential outcomes. For both, the lynchpin is either succeeding or failing to develop a new electronic content access and distribution infrastructure via libraries. If we can develop that new infrastructure and make it a truly effective, competitive, well used and well liked place for people to get what they want, when they want it, in the format they want it *through the library*, then our future will be more secure and on-target than ever before. If we fail to do this though, libraries will fade in use, funding and relevance. This would eventually lead to the demise of the library as the hub of content access and community engagement and turn many of those functions over to for profit business and institutions that have mission statement tied to profit rather than the health and wisdom of the community and country they serve.
This is a call to action for all of us. We shouldn’t just wait for a vendor to develop a platform for us. We shouldn’t let something as simple as a library’s ability to loan a book be taken away by corporations in the digital age. We need to raise this issue. If we want libraries to continue to exist, we need to let go of our comfort and get on the front lines of this issue.
So there is no confusion, I am not anti-corporation, per se. Corporations can be our partners in it the future. And, so my last words will be positive, we can do it.
Thanks go out to Michael Porter from us at 8bitlibrary.com. Check out his Library 101 project, if you haven’t yet.
But is it ART??
33 years ago
So there’s been some press recently on the concept of video games as a form of “art”.
This debate was inspired by recent comments made by film critic Roger Ebert, who claims that not only are video games not art, but that by their very nature they cannot be art. Ebert cites a TED talk given by the lovely lovely Kellee Santiago, who inverts the film critic’s argument by saying that not only will video games one day become art, but that they already are … art.
Roger Ebert’s comments have ignited many responses from people in the game community, including such luminaries as Yahtzee Croshaw and Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade. (see below)
At the heels of this online debate, comes the news that the US Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case this Fall involving the First Amendment protections of violent video games.
This is not the first time that video games have come under scrutiny for issues relating to free speech. It seems like only yesterday that the ultra-violent video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas came under fire for a secret modification that incorporated a fully nude sex scene into the game. The double standard did not go unnoticed by the media. Here was a game that allowed your character to steal cars, murder cops, and beat prostitutes with a baseball bat. But one scene of completely consensual sex was enough to get the moral guardians in a tizzy. More recently, the game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 became the target of controversy for the inclusion of a mission that allows the player to commit an act of international terrorism on some unsuspecting Russian civilians. (warning, contains really disturbing imagery)
Whether or not video games should be considered “art” is only part of the question. The broader questions are: “Where do video games fall with regard to First Amendment protections?”, and: “Why does it seem that people automatically assume that the only people who play video games are 4 – 12 years old?”. Recent (and even not so recent) studies have already shown us that the average gamer is actually between the ages of 25 – 30, yet public opinion still seems to link “video games” with “kid stuff”. This is why violence in video games has become such a First Amendment issue. Not because they are more violent than your basic Tarantino flick, or that they are more sexually explicit than a Friday-late-night Cinemax movie, but because they’re games; and most people still parse “games” as: “child’s play”.
So where do libraries make the distinction? As self-proclaimed First Amendment warriors, we as librarians have an obligation to preserve the availability of certain materials that others may find objectionable. Yet if we’re hosting game nights for young teens, we might not necessarily want them to orchestrate a terrorist attack on Russian civilians in our children’s section. So how do we reconcile these issues? We can start by recognizing that the medium of video games does not necessarily define the audience; and that not everything with a health bar is family friendly kid stuff. Librarians will defend to the death our right to provide the public with Mapplethorpe, Salinger, and Anne Frank, but that doesn’t mean that we intershelve them with the Doctor Seuss books. ;)
Personally, I would defend video games, even violent ones, as an art form, but only under a very broad definition. Ordinarily, I think of art as something to be enjoyed passively, rather than interactively. In video games, the observer guides the action, and becomes an accomplice in the creation of the art. This does not make video games any less valid than the more discrete forms of art. A masterfully executed level of Tomb Raider can be every bit as beautiful as a perfect game of chess, a Baryshnikov fouetté jeté, a Salvador Dali painting, or a Hendrix solo. But I feel that the interactivity of video games places them into a different sphere of aesthetic appreciation. It is a hybrid of visual art and performance art that defines the participant as collaborator. For this reason, I feel that video games as art form deserve every protection that our Constitution provides. I eagerly wait the foundation of entire galleries devoted to the art of the video game.
Maybe we can get some eccentric billionaire to give us a grant. :)