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.

Emerging Leaders present best practices for video game collection development

Are you thinking about starting a video game collection for your library? Are you wondering how to take your video game collection to the next level? Join the 2011 ALA Emerging Leaders Team G for a poster presentation on video game collection development at the ALA Annual Conference on Friday, June 24, 2011 from 3:00pm – 4:00pm in Conference Center Room 271-273.

Team G, comprised of Erik Bobilin, Abby Johnson, Kate Kosturski, Jonathan Lu, and Nicole Pagowsky, will present information on issues and best practices when developing a video game collection, including Circulation & Access, Selection & Purchasing, Weeding, and an ideal MARC record. The team surveyed public, academic, and school libraries across the United States and Canada and spoke with experts in the field to find out what innovative ideas might change what we know about video game collections in libraries.

ALA’s Emerging Leaders program allows new professionals to gain experience and create personal networks within the American Library Association by working with a group on an assigned project.

For more information, check out the team’s website: http://bit.ly/libvideogames

JP and I had the opportunity to work with the awesome Team G over the past six months on this program.  They’ve done some amazing work with this project that I hope you all will check out if you’re going to be at ALA 2011.

This is why Justin & all the party people are running to the SECOND ANNUAL ALA DANCE PARTY.

Will Manley just wrote a blog post about LJ Movers and Shakers where he says:

Will Manley: When I hear the term “movers and shakers,” I think of Donald Trump, Steve Jobs, Sarah Palin, and Hillary Clinton.

I’m currently writing a blog post where I say:

JP: When I hear the term “movers and shakers,” I think of people moving their hips and shaking their ass.

SO, let’s compare for a second,

Average Library Journal Mover & Shaker:

...yada yada yada blogging blah blah blah social media in libraries type type type mobile technology...

Librarian who moves & shakes at the ALA DANCE PARTY:

we do what we like and we like what we do, so let's get a party going, now it's time to party and we'll party hard

even their cats are moving and shaking!

Obviously we love lots of LJ’s Movers and Shakers, 2011 LJ M&S Eli Neiburger was 8bitlibrary‘s Patron Saint* even before he got library-famous by saying Libraries are Screwed, 2010 LJ M&S JENN WANN is our DUDE and she actually PICKED the location for ALA DANCE PARTY 2011 (besides being one of the founders of the ALA Think Tank, which has taken a life of its own…), 2009 LJ M&S Laverne Mann is RedheadFangirl here on 8bitlibrary and has the most contributions to the site after me & Justin. I could go on…

DUMBLEDORE IS A MOVER AND SHAKER

SO anyway HERE’S JP FROM 8BITLIBRARY.COM‘S CHALLENGE TO ALL LJ MOVERS AND SHAKERS PAST & PRESENT ATTENDING ALA ANNUAL 2011: PROVE YOUR ARE A MOVER AND SHAKER BY MOVING AND SHAKING AT THE ALA DANCE PARTY 11!!

RSVP on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=191826097521352

ALA DANCE PARTY is on ALA Connect: http://bit.ly/alaparty

* Eli has yet to respond to my challenge to a Pokemon battle.

@JUSTINLIBRARIAN WILL YOU WEAR THIS TO ALA DANCE PARTY?!

And so, I leave you with this: Everyone can be a library mover and shaker by moving and shaking at the ALA DANCE PARTY! #partyhard You don’t need a stuffy old library publication telling YOU who moves and shakes! #makeithappen

Getting your first 90 day layoff notice bites. There are so many things that run through your head, and sitting at the reference desk you certainly have enough time to think about them. It was during one of these self pitying “what do I do now” reference desk hours that I created the image. It was my way of saying we won’t be shushed, you can’t shut us up, we won’t stop protesting until all of our branches stay open. Then the whole thing went a little nuts, and all of a sudden I’d taught myself to screenprint, broken my mom’s dryer, andcovered the trees in my mom’s yard with tshirts. The We Will Not Be Shushed attitude and image hit a nerve with us at Queens Library, and we fought like crazy. We had 400 people show up at city hall, we stayed up all night reading in protest and we got most of our funding restored.

Now we’re facing it all again. The proposed cuts this year will bring us up to a 40% cut since 2009. Libraries in New York just can’t function with that kind of cut. But that’s ok, because our librarians are a scrappy bunch of punk ass book jockeys. We’re planning more and bigger advocacy events than last year, and we’ll get our damn funding back.

The process of getting said tattoo was kind of weird and very librariany. The artist who did it was into comics and had a passion for bad post-apocalyptic fiction, so I found myself doing readers advisory while in the chair. “You might like S.M. Stirling, ouch, Dies the Fire is really good in a sort of awful way, ouch.” A librarian’s job is never over.

Clearly, when I say we should be in a permanent state of advocacy I really mean it. I was lucky enough to create an image last year that people could be inspired by and rally around, and at least part of the reason I got the tattoo was to try to inspire myself again. To remind myself to fight for the people in our communities who can’t. To remember why we do all this. And because being a librarian has become part of who I am, and it’s going to stay that way.

Check us out at www.savenyclibraries.org. If you’re in New York on June 11th and 12th, check out the read-in. Sign all three petitions!
I’ll appreciate it, and I know that my coworkers and patrons will as well.

Thanks for the post Lauren!  FYI, Lauren originally accompanied the original Project Brand Yourself a Librarian group to Jinx Proof Tattoos in Washington, DC during ALA 2010 and was there for the initial branding!      -Justin

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.

Reading Rainbow (Captain Culo Remix) by Cutso listen | download

Reading Rainbow (Dj Protege Remix) listen | download

Nas!!

by DJ Nique

Yeah, I know we all love our games, especially the more retro they become, but as gamers we can donate our games to a good cause–

DonateGames is an innovative social enterprise dedicated to supporting children with rare diseases through the collection and re-purposing of donated video games and gear

Just put your game in a padded envelope and send…if you give your email and return address they’ll send you a tax-deductible receipt.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve come to the realization that I’m first and foremost a retro gamer.  When it comes to the latest and greatest games out there, I haven’t played about 99% of them.  I rely on video gaming blogs and magazines to keep me up to date when it comes to the present.  For most of the time, however, I live in the past.  And that’s not a bad thing.  I grew up with these games.  That’s the big reason why they are still a huge part of my life.  With my video gaming history firmly in place mixed with the librarian thinking part of my brain comes a barrage of ideas on how libraries can use retro gaming to attract and educate patrons.

It's odd to think that these kids were not born when the last NES game was released.

Retro gaming programming at your library is a great way to let the public know that video games have a HISTORY.  8BitLibrary and Piscataway Public Library teamed up and had a Retro Gaming Event in 2010 (Click here or here for pics).  These programs are designed to turn your library into a makeshift museum of video game history.  What does this history do?  Like classic books, it will show your community that gaming has a rich background.  Games like Minecraft which encourage players to build and create their own world have their roots in games like  Sim City.  Librarians can find and show these connections to their community.  These connections in video game history will create a rich tapestry of games which we can then use to educate our patrons about the rich possibilities gaming has to offer.

Personally, I really enjoyed the Virtual Boy.

Yesterday’s release of Nintendo’s new handheld 3D gaming system the Nintendo 3DS gives libraries who have the system a chance to offer up the device for testing within the library.  It’s a simple idea…set up some systems for your patrons to play and teach them about the technology.  So where does retro gaming come into the picture?  Nintendo’s tried 3D gaming before with the Virtual Boy.  It didn’t really work out that well and the Virtual Boy died off rather quickly less than 1 year after it was released.  Most people haven’t ever heard of the system and look at you in disbelief when you tell them about it (“why in the hell would they have released that?” is my favorite question I get when I tell them about the specifics of the Virtual Boy.) Giving patrons a chance to play the Virtual Boy at the library will create a unique experience which they’ll most likely not get anywhere else.  It will also open up a lot of discussion on 3D gaming and how this new technology will impact our culture.

Yes, I applied some photo filter to this pic to make it look older.

Which brings me to my final point…can anyone give me a good reason why we shouldn’t lend out retro games and systems to our patrons?  I’ve talked about this topic once before and the more and more I think about it this option seems like a no brainer.  As libraries are squished out from viable eBook lending options and all that other stuff, what does the mission of the library become?  I’m an advocate of giving our patrons experiences over just giving them stuff.  Lending out retro games and systems like the Sega Saturn above gives our community a chance to experience something that they may not have a chance to experience elsewhere.  My recent ongoing affair with X-Men: Children of the Atom for the Sega Saturn was only made possible by the fact that my mother and myself are pack rats who saved every single piece of video gaming history I collected.  While I do enjoy the time I spend playing this game at home by myself (my wife won’t play with me) it would be a lot cooler if I could share this experience with others.